


The Wolf of Baskerville

by fardareismai



Series: This Rose is Extra [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, F/M, Roselock, This Rose is Extra, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler discovers that Pete's World contains the real Sherlock Holmes- not a Victorian eccentric, but a modern genius. She works at his side to help him solve his most famous case. Crossover with BBC's Sherlock. Story 1 in This Rose is Extra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Backseat Driver

**Author's Note:**

> This was something of a wild hare that I just couldn't seem to get rid of, so I had to put it to paper. This story is complete as well as several follow-up stories, and the next long piece is in the works.
> 
> Love and props go to my husband for editing this drivel, and to SquirrelWho over on eff eff dot net for being my muse.
> 
> These characters don't belong to me except that I keep them alive in my heart.

Five years had passed for Rose Tyler. She wondered sometimes how much time had passed for the Doctor- it could have been five minutes, or 500 years, considering his life. He might still have his unfinished sentence on the tip of his tongue, or he might have forgotten her, replaced her a hundred times over, or changed his face again. For her, however, it had been five very human years. It had been time enough to deny (just because he said it was impossible doesn’t mean it’s actually _impossible_ , Mother), be angry (why didn’t you tie me to the magna-clamp, Doctor?), bargain (if I get my doctorate I’ll be worthy of him again), become depressed (I will never love anyone else), and to accept. 

Five years and Rose Tyler had become a new woman- the Defender of the Earth. 

Five years and though she thought of the Doctor often, it was with pleasant warmth of the happiest two years of her life, not with bitter disappointment in her current world- like looking upon the gilded days of her childhood, knowing that one can’t go back, and wouldn’t, even if one could. 

Five years she’d spent working for Torchwood in the laboratory and the field and rising to Team Leader of the Torchwood Prime team and the presumptive Director of Torchwood. 

Five years spent proving that she was more than merely the Doctor’s Rose. 

Five years and Rose Tyler was remarkable in her own right.

Five years and Rose Tyler still got stuck in places she had never intended because some man couldn’t prove that he was smarter than his mode of transportation.

“For God’s sake, Micks, the village is only about five miles up the road. I can walk it in less than an hour, and run it in half that.”

“I’m not letting you wander a dark road in the middle of nowhere by yourself, Babes,” came the voice from under the hood of their Torchwood-issue Land Rover.

Rose was stretched on the hard top of the vehicle (Mickey had glared when she had hopped up and muttered about scratching paint and warping chassis and she didn’t much care), hands behind her head, ankles crossed, naming the stars in her head. This was the third time since the sun had set almost two hours ago that they’d had this exact same argument. Never mind that Rose, for her fewer years with Torchwood, was Mickey’s senior officer. Never mind that she carried both a standard Earth pistol and an alien-issue blaster (neither of which did she ever use except in the direst of circumstance). Never mind four and a half years of training to move silently, swiftly, and all-unnoticed through both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial landscapes. Mickey would always think of her as his to protect.

“You could have let me go back when it was still light.”

“I’ll get this fixed. Give me a few more minutes, Babe. Not so long as all that since I was a mechanic.”

Rose was distracted from rehashing the next bit of the argument (about how the torch that Mickey had pulled out of his toolkit nearly three hours gone would run out of batteries long before he figured out what was wrong with the Land Rover’s engine) by the flash of headlights over the hill, coming their way and heading in the direction they were going. She hopped down from the top of the car to stand at the side of the road and wave frantically to catch the attention of the oncoming driver who stopped in front of her a moment later in a black Land Rover much like their own.

“Rose!” Mickey cried, mortified, “what are you doing? I’ve almost got it!”

Rose flashed a grin at her best friend. “Your willy don’t fall off if you ask for help, Micks, and you were never a mechanic in this universe. ‘Sprobably French or Kenyan or some other country that don’t make cars where we come from.” She turned back to the car and the rather shocked-looking man driving, who appeared to have rolled down the window in time to catch her jibe at Mickey’s manhood.

“Hi!” she began, with her best charming grin, “m’name’s Rose. You couldn’t possibly give my mate here and me a lift into Grimpen, the village just up the way, could you? Only we’d have called a tow ages ago (well, I would have anyway), but we’re in a dead zone, and he won’t let me walk into town, somethin’ about it being too dangerous for a pretty girl on the road,” she rolled her eyes here like this was the most daft thing she’d ever heard.

The mousy-looking man in the driver’s seat continued to look at her as though she were slightly mad. Rose knew that she could babble for England (she'd learned from the best), and she had found that it was an effective way to diffuse tension, she also knew that acting less clever than she actually was worked even better on men.

Rose continued, “look, I know how creepy it is, picking up strangers in the dark on a country road, and it’s just the kind of thing a serial killer would do- have a pretty blonde to do his talking for him and win people over- or else be a pretty blonde! That’s an option! I could be the serial killer! Wouldn’t that be mad? Probably make a good serial killer, don’t you think, Micks?” this last was tossed over her shoulder to her partner, who knew precisely what she was doing.

“Can you kill someone by slapping them?” Mickey asked gruffly.

“Dunno. Shoulda’ tried it on ol’ Jimmy, yeah?”

“Or the pinstripe puppy.”

“Maybe after the business in France, yeah. But he’d probably have just come back younger and even more inclined towards busty blondes.” Mickey laughed at that, and Rose flashed him a grin, turning back to the car. “So anyway, like I say, I get that you might not want to let us in your car, and that’s fine, but do you have a mobile that’s getting signal? I’ll just call the tow, or maybe a cab.”

Rose could tell that the man was flustered, which had been precisely her goal.

“No-no, it’s fine… I mean, I can give you a lift… or…” at this the stuttering man shifted to dig into the pocket of his trousers and Rose noticed the man in the other seat for the first time. Her night-adjusted eyes could see that his mobile was in his hand, but he made no effort to check it for signal. Maybe he knew it was out. The smaller man pulled his phone out as well and checked. “Nope, dead. Sorry.”

“’Fraid of that. But you’re okay giving us a lift? I wouldn’t normally ask, Micks over there is great with machines, but our torch is gonna die soon and I think it’s beyond his skills.” She directed the next over her shoulder, “impressive as they are.”

“That-that’s fine. No, I-we don’t mind giving you a-letting you-where did you say you were going?”

“Into Grimpen village. Guidebook says there’s only the one inn the Cross Keys, so it should be pretty easy to find, yeah? I guess I didn’t check on chain hotels or B&Bs or anything, so maybe it won’t be. I dunno if Grimpen is where you’re heading, but I’d be happy to buy you drinks for your trouble. Or, I guess, if you don’t drink, or if you’re gonna keep driving, I could buy you dinner?” Rose ended this last on a question. She thought, looking at the man, that he would be uncomfortable with a woman paying for his drinks or his meal. Military, she guessed, by his haircut and bearing, even seated. He reminded her of her first Doctor, so she added ‘wounded’ to her mental profile. She could not yet be certain, but she believed the wound was more likely to be psychological than physical, but possibly both.

“No, it’s fine. We’re headed there ourselves, so it’s not out of the way or anything.”

“You’re a life saver, you are. Come on, Micks, you can keep making love to that engine when there’s enough light to see your spanner in front of your face. I’ll get it towed into the village once my mobile is working again.” 

Rose heard Mickey muttering something about ‘super-phones’ under his breath and she laughed merrily as she walked over to grab her rucksack from beside the Land Rover and pull him toward the car. “Yeah, universal coverage don’t mean what it used to mean for us, does it?” Rose asked, making him smile. She shoved him into the backseat of the second Land Rover and crawled in after him.

“So, I probably said before- got a bit of a gob, me- but I’m Rose, and this is Mickey. And you are?”

An unfamiliar, perfectly accented voice spoke from the darkness on the passenger side of the car, “Rose Tyler, Vitex heiress and tabloid darling.”

Rose chose to answer that with a grin. “Are you really? 'Cause I've always wanted to meet her. The tabs make her look like such fun- bit of a slapper, but she's always going to parties and hanging around with pretty boys. Well then, if you're” and here her heavier-than-normal Cockney accent fell away, and she perfectly mimicked the man's crisp vowels, “Rose Tyler, Vitex heiress and tabloid darling-” she resumed the previous accent, “then you,” this directed towards the man in the driver's seat, “must be Mickey Smith. Them two're joined at the hip, they are. Must be sleeping together.”

“He's a good looking, bloke,” Mickey commented, vaguely.

“Ah,” Rose sighed, “he's too good for her.”

“I hear she likes blokes with big ears.”

“I'll bet she does. You know what they say about blokes with big ears, yeah? But I heard she likes Americans too.”

“Yeah, loud idiots with more brawn than brains.”

“And men in suits.”

“The kind who like French blondes better than British ones.”

The man whose face Rose hadn't seen cleared his throat to interrupt their burlesque. “Are you quite finished?” he asked.

Rose's silly-ass act dropped, and with it her exaggerated accent. “I asked you a polite question, but rather than answering in a polite way, you thought you would prove to me how clever you are to have figured out who I am. Seems all you've proved is that you read the rags. Congratulations, you and every housewife in Europe knows my name and thinks you know something about my personal life.”

The car was silent for three solid minutes. Rose counted the seconds carefully.

“I know,” came the biting voice from the passenger seat again, and Rose saw the man in the driver's seat cringe, “that you are carrying a minimum of two weapons, one in your rucksack and one in a holster at your side. I know that your friend is carrying both of his on his person, one in a holster under his jacket and one at his side as well. He probably also has a blade in his boot. I know that the tabloids claim that you live a life without purpose, but you obviously have a job, and are here about it. The Land Rover and your choice of clothing indicate some sort of law or government enforcement, or possibly military, as well as the way you move, watch around you, and catalogue impressions. I know that both you and your colleague’s accents come from East End London, though when you wish to impress, you are capable of nearly completely suppressing the accent. Your companion is less skilled. You both speak as if you have traveled extensively, including travel to France, but your accents do not indicate fluency in a second language. Neither of you lives in the East End now, but as you say, that knowledge could come from the papers, not necessarily my own observations.”

The man who had been speaking turned in his seat. Mickey was directly behind him, but Rose was in his line of sight. It was too dark for details, but she had the impression of high cheekbones, light eyes, and dark, rumpled hair.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my companion Doctor John Watson. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Rose felt a smile stretching her mouth and saw, though she had a suspicion that he would deny it had ever happened, an answering smile at the very edges of Sherlock's mouth.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, the pleasure is entirely mine.”


	2. Surprise Me

It had been some 18 months ago when Rose had paged through a newspaper and seen the name Sherlock Holmes there for the first time. She had never been much of a reader of fiction (why bother when one’s real life was more exciting than even the most extraordinary novel?), and had never read the Conan Doyle oeuvre (despite the Doctor once bragging that he had inspired the main character) nor had she watched any of the many television or film adaptations of the stories. She knew the name, naturally, but effectively nothing else. To discover that there was a consulting detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes in the, apparently, grudging employ of Scotland Yard in this universe had caused her no end of amusement.

She had done some internet research on the man and discovered both his personal website and the good doctor’s blog. She had become an avid fan, discussing the business with Mickey (who had read a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but not many) and her mother (who had always flipped away from any television adaptation as soon as she had seen what it was). Neither quite understood her love of the blog, or of keeping up with the man’s career, however. Rose was now time-bound and Earth-bound. It gave her pleasure to read about something and someone who was, effectively, history for her (even if the man was obviously a modern genius, rather than a Victorian one).

In addition, though Rose would admit it to neither her mother nor her best mate, Dr. Watson’s blog presented Sherlock as a mad, manic, slightly bipolar genius. While Rose no longer pined for her Doctor, she would miss him until the day she died, and the stories of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson reminded her of an Earth-bound version of the stories of the Doctor and Rose Tyler.

“Doctor, if your hands weren't occupied, I'd like to shake them. I don’t have much time for reading outside of work, but I always make time to read your blog when it updates,” Rose told the man sitting in front of her, “some of the most entertaining stuff I’ve ever read, you’re brilliant, you are.” Rose could almost hear the small man blushing at her effusive and earnest praise.

“The events are non-fiction, though you could hardly tell from the writing style. John is my chronicler.” Sherlock’s voice was just slightly petulant, as though upset that John had received praise and he had not.

“Oh yes, Mr. Holmes. I believe every word the good Doctor has written, and I know that you are probably the second most brilliant mind that I have ever met.” She ignored Sherlock’s scoff and continued smoothly, “however, I know a great deal about slightly mad geniuses with tendencies towards condescension and tunnel vision, and I know that your John Watson is much more than your blogger.”

“I’m not- we’re not… together,” John piped up from in front of her, “I’m not gay. Why does everyone seem to think I’m gay?”

Rose and Mickey both chuckled.

“I never said you were, Doctor. And even if you were, he’s not.” She observed Sherlock’s eyebrow raise at this statement, but ignored it and continued, “I know you’re not together like that. But you don’t have to be in a sexual relationship with someone for them to be the most important person in your world.”

“Trust me, mate,” Mickey interjected, “she knows a lot about it.”

“Probably more than anyone else in this universe. Doctor Watson, you are an inspiration. You probably also deserve a sainthood.” Rose turned to meet Sherlock’s eyes in the dark and continued, “you, Sherlock Holmes are something else, entirely. Do you own a fob watch?”

Sherlock blinked at this apparent non-sequitur. “I beg your pardon?”

“You can beg all you like, but you can’t have it.”

Mickey chuckled again in the dark.

“A fob watch, Mr. Holmes. A silver pocket watch on a chain with a geometric design of circles across the cover. It probably doesn’t open. Do you own one?”

“No.”

“Dr. Watson, have you ever seen such an item among Mr. Holmes’ things that he might have missed?”

“What? No.”

“Then, Mr. Holmes, you are the type of human who only comes along once in a hundred generations. Your intellect is practically an evolutionary leap forward. It happens, on occasion. Significantly more than once in a hundred generations, but the mind isn’t equipped to handle intellect on that scale. Frankly, Mr. Holmes, you should be psychopathic.”

“There are those who say I am.”

“They’re idiots,” Rose said, smiling and waving her hand dismissively. “You’re undoubtedly a sociopath, probably on the Autism scale, and you may be prone to violence and addictive behaviors like alcohol or drug abuse, but you’re no psychopath.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I knew someone very much like you once. Impossibly brilliant. More brilliant than you, but he had an advantage that I don’t care to explain to you. I saw him lose himself on several occasions. I saw the monster that lives chained behind the eyes of every genius. I know it lives inside you, but I would also recognize if it were free.”

“I am not your friend. There is no one in the world quite like me.”

“That statement is true of everyone, my dear Holmes.”

“Hardly. The school system pretends that everyone is unique, but everyone is much the same- blind, stupid and vapid. I don’t think there’s a person alive who could surprise me.”

“Stupid little apes, barely down from the trees?”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Funny little human brains. Don’t you wonder how we get around in these things?”

“How…?”

“Surprised you, didn’t I?”

“Uhm… we’re here.”

Rose and Sherlock had been locked on one another’s eyes so completely that the other two passengers in the car had fallen away completely. They had not even noticed the car stopping, or Mickey and John waiting for them to emerge from their reverie and notice them.

Sherlock flickered a glance at John and returned his eyes to Rose’s. “Who are you, Rose Tyler?”

Rose smiled a slow, mysterious smile. It wasn’t her cheeky grin, or her bright, flirtatious smile, it was a wolf’s smile.

“It’s like when you’re a kid, the first time they tell you that the world’s turning and you just can’t quite believe it because everything looks like it’s standing still. I’ve seen it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. And the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour and I’ve seen it. We’re falling through space, all of us. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…” Rose broke the gaze and met John Watson’s eyes with a small lift to the left side of her mouth, and Mickey Smith’s with a subtle wink. “That’s who I am. Now forget me, Sherlock Holmes.”

And with that, Rose Tyler climbed out of John Watson’s car and sauntered into the inn.


	3. Misapprehensions

Sherlock would never let another woman get under his skin. The Woman had done that to disastrous effect (even if he didn't much care about the breakdown in his relationship with Mycroft). This woman thought she knew him, but he could see right through her.

She told him to forget her. He would do nothing of the sort.

~?~?~?~?~

“That last line was too much. He'll never forget you now that you told him not to.”

Rose gave Mickey a look like he'd dribbled on his shirt. “Well of course he won't forget me. Why on Earth would I go to all that trouble with that lovely speech if I wanted him to forget me?”

Mickey's eyes widened. “Wait, was all of that on purpose? How could you possibly know?”

“Know what, Mick? I'm not psychic! How could I have known who would be in that car when I flagged them down and pulled out the Oncoming Babble to get them to bring us into town? Speaking of which, I'm gonna get the number of a towing company, you get us rooms. Two singles or a double, don't much matter to me.” With this pronouncement, Rose walked up to the desk, leaving Mickey behind in a cloud of complete bemusement.

~?~?~?~?~

“She works for Baskerville.”

John watched Sherlock watching the blonde leaving the front entrance of the inn and talking into a slim, blue mobile phone, presumably calling her tow.

“Oddly enough, Sherlock, I'd sussed that one out for myself. Not a lot of covert ops going on out here.”

“So,” Sherlock interrupted, “despite what she says, or what I thought, that is not Rose Tyler, daughter of Pete Tyler, Vitex owner. Can't be. Rose Tyler lives openly in London, and considering the Paparazzi follows her practically everywhere, it would be very hard to travel to and from Dartmoor the amount that would be required to work here. She and her partner are not terribly clever, choosing code names from the tabloids.”

“Pretty uncanny resemblance. Not that the tabloid shots are ever very good, but that girl does look a lot like Rose Tyler.”

“As you say, John, the tabloid shots are never clear, and we only saw her in the dark. That may even be why she chose the code name.”

“So it wasn't coincidence that they met us coming in.” John didn't even bother phrasing it as a question.

“A mobile dead zone, just before dark when it wasn't quite possible to tell who we were talking to, a psychologist and her muscle whose act is word-perfect from the institute we've come to investigate hitch a ride from us? Honestly, John, even you can't possibly be that stupid.”

John merely rolled his eyes. The mysterious woman (Rose, he thought in his head, even if she wasn't Rose Tyler, the name seemed to suit) had told him that he deserved a sainthood, and she was right, sometimes. But she had also been quite right about Sherlock- a mad genius who needed someone to keep him from going completely 'round the twist. John was vital to Sherlock, and he knew it. He even relished it sometimes, though he hated it at others.

“Come on, Sherlock, let's go get ourselves a room.”

The two men entered together as the good-looking black man they had given a lift finished signing the register at the counter and was handed two keys.

“The restaurant here is all vegetarian, but it's the best food in town, guaranteed!” the innkeeper was effusing.

“Meat's no nevermind here, do you all do chips?”

“Oh, of course, best chips you'll find in all of Devon!”

“Herself will be thrilled,” the young man said, giving a cheery grin and a wink to the proprietor. He turned and gave a nod to the two men approaching the registration desk and stepped around them to where Rose was coming in the front door.

“Bit of an expensive ruse,” John muttered to Sherlock, “staying in a hotel if they live nearby.”

“They'll want to keep an eye on us. Can't do that from their homes.” Sherlock glanced around, patted John on the shoulder and said, even more quietly, “you handle the room,” and disappeared from John's side.

Rose and Mickey were standing at the door. Mickey handed Rose a key with a room number tag hanging off of it, and Rose appeared to be telling Mickey the details of the tow.

“...Said they'd have it here in about 30 minutes. Good thing too, left my purse and computer in the back.” She shot her friend a cheerful grin that he returned in kind.

“Miss Tyler?” Sherlock was a good actor, and he knew it. He added just a bit of star-struck hesitancy to his voice as he approached her. She glanced over at him, and raised a single eyebrow, imperiously inviting him to continue to speak.

“Well, it's just, you offered dinner in return for the lift here.”

“Yes, you're completely right,” she said with a smile, “I offered _John_ dinner. I'll go check when he's available.” She then sauntered off to where the small man was being handed a room key.

“I'm afraid all I have left are double rooms,” the innkeeper was saying, “the two in before you took the last single.”

“Well, of course we want two beds,” John spluttered, “why wouldn't we want... we're not...”

Rose chose that moment to interrupt, “Dr. Watson? John?”

John turned to her, wariness and curiosity in his look.

“Your friend just reminded me that you and I have a date tonight.” Rose gave him a fine, flirty smile. “My room is 55, you could pick me up in about 90 minutes?”

“I... uh...”

Rose grabbed his elbow and pulled him away from the desk. “Let's discuss it over here, in case someone else comes in.” Once she had pulled him away far enough away from the desk that the manager wasn't listening anymore, she dropped the overly flirtatious attitude. “Sorry 'bout that,” she said, in her normal voice, “just seemed that guy ought to be put in his place for assuming. He may be gay, but not everyone is just because they travel with someone.”

“He's gay?”

“Yeah, told me all about his husband's car breaking down right about the same place ours did. Apparently it's close enough to the Baskerville facility that it's a mobile dead zone for almost a mile in every direction. Honestly, the man could talk for England, and I would know.” She offered him a cheeky grin again. “Now, you're under no obligation to have dinner with me, but the offer does still stand. I promise, I'm an excellent conversationalist, and I clean up all right. If you're good, I'll even let you get in an awkward goodnight kiss.”

John looked at the pretty woman smiling up at him. Her smile was completely genuine. He knew enough of psychology and interrogation these days to be certain of that. If he was honest, he wanted to spend more time with her. He didn't trust her, but something in him desperately wanted to- it might just have been his ego. So much time with Sherlock had left him susceptible to the kind of flattery she had offered him in the car.

“Sherlock and I could meet you in about...”

“Not Sherlock, Doctor, just you.”

“Just me?”

“The dinner is payment for the ride, yeah? Well, is the car Sherlock's?” she asked, clearly guessing the answer?

“Well, no. But it isn't mine either, it's a rental.”

“And will Sherlock pay for the petrol?”

“Probably not.”

“Had Sherlock been driving, would the car have even stopped for two strangers on the side of the road?”

“He drove most of the way down,” John hedged.

“That was a no. And finally, Doctor, if I had, in fact, been the serial killer I joked about being, would it have been Sherlock that fired the revolver that you had in the glove compartment?”

“How do you know about...”

“Captain,” Rose spoke with a slight bite in her voice, and the Army doctor's spine straightened automatically at being referred to by his old rank, “you would have picked Mickey and me out as military without Sherlock's help if you'd seen us in the light of day. It takes a soldier to know a soldier.”

“Ex-soldier.”

“Bollocks. You know that there is no such thing. From the day you put on your uniform until the day you die, you will be a soldier.”

John looked at the small woman before him. Her face was more serious now than he had yet seen, and he could see the truth behind her eyes. She had seen war, and she had seen death. She was at least 10 years younger than him, but he was certain that she knew as much of war as he did. Maybe more.

“Please, John,” she said, quietly, switching to his first name, “let me buy you dinner, or at least a drink. It will give you a chance to ask the questions that I can feel buzzing in Sherlock's mind from here. I would never expect you to keep the answers from him, but for a few minutes, you'll know and he won't, and won't that be grand?” Her smile was back, and John thought, idly, that despite her hardened soldier's eyes, her smile was genuine. She must be extremely strong.

“Yeah, okay, it's a date.”

She gave him her biggest smile yet. It was bright enough to light up the entire room.

“Oh, I was hoping you'd say that.”


	4. The Date

Sherlock watched the blonde girl talk to John. She kept her back to him, and after a few moments of talking, even John stopped glancing at him, keeping his eyes trained on her face.

Sherlock was quite certain that the girl had been bluffing about not inviting him to dinner. He was completely certain that he was the one she was hoping to interrogate, not John. He was the one that she needed. He watched John's face grow serious- his soldier's look. He only wore that look when talking about the war. What had the girl said? Sherlock considered going, if only to protect John, but the older man's face brightened suddenly, and Sherlock saw a genuine smile light his eyes. John nodded, and parted company with the girl who had introduced herself as Rose Tyler. She went up the stairs, presumably to her room, and John walked over to him, proffering the key to the room that they would share.

“So when is dinner?” Sherlock asked.

“Ninety minutes. You're not invited.”

“What do you mean I'm not invited?”

John grabbed Sherlock's shoulder and steered him up the stairs toward their room.

“I mean, she offered the meal as compensation for the ride. She guessed, quite correctly I might add, that the car isn't ours, you don't pay for the petrol, and had you been driving, she would have been left on the side of the road.”

“I was driving until we got out to look at the map.”

“Any possibility that we could focus on what is important here, Sherlock?”

“What is important, John, is that you seem to be under the misapprehension that this is a date with a pretty girl. This dinner is to be an interrogation-”

“You think she's pretty,” John interrupted.

“And you will have to keep your limited wits about you,” Sherlock continued as though John had said nothing, “you need me there. You won't ask the right questions. You'll give yourself away. Besides, it's me she wants to question, not you.”

“Dunno, it was me she seemed most impressed with in the car...” John knew that Sherlock was offended that he would be interrogated first- not worried for John's safety, but irritated that he, Sherlock, was not the most important person, and therefore the first interrogated- and John was enjoying baiting the other man.

“How many times do I have to tell you, the woman is not interested in you romantically? She is an actress. An ingenue. A creature of fiction. She is the Adler Woman over again without her brains, and she shall not best me this time.”

John had feared this. It had been about six months since The Woman had died, and while Sherlock was finally moving out of his funk (though it was hard to tell with the bipolar detective), it seemed that he still saw The Woman's betrayal in every woman. In this case, John didn't think his friend was wrong, but the fact still worried him.

John reached his hand to Sherlock's shoulder. “Sherlock, it's fine, I can handle myself against-”

“Rose!”

Both men turned as a shout came from the stairs. The man who had been introduced as Mickey was coming up the stairs.

“Rose, your purse don't match my shoes, so come get it.”

A door on the other side of the hallway and four down from where the two men had stood arguing opened. The girl who had introduced herself as Rose stepped out wearing the bathrobe provided by the inn, with her blonde hair loose and damp about her shoulders, obviously in the middle of rubbing it dry with the towel in her hands.

“What's the point of traveling with big, strong men if they won't carry your bags for you?” she asked no one in particular. She glanced both ways down the hall, assessing her surroundings, and noticed the men standing and watching her.

“Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes,” she said in greeting, “Doctor, I believe I have 45 minutes before our dinner, are you planning on standing in the hall the entire time?”

She gave no obvious indication of whether she had heard their conversation. They had not been shouting, but neither had they been keeping their voices overly low. 

“Uh, no. We were just... talking.”

Rose shrugged, and walked across the hall to meet Mickey at the top of the stairs and take her bag from him. He carried an ordinary black rucksack, two laptop cases, and a large sapphire-coloured woman's purse. He handed Rose the purse and the laptop case with a rose embellished across the front. The one he kept had Mickey Mouse on it.

Taking the bag, Rose teased him, “poor Mickey, had to carry Wose's girly bag all the way upstairs. What are you up to tonight?”

“Well, since you're ditching me for a doctor- again- I figured I'd have dinner at the pub. Should be a match on tonight.”

“Wouldn't want your trip to Devon make you miss a match. Early morning tomorrow, so be careful.”

“Yes mum,” Mickey griped, but softened the tease with a wink. “See ya' in the mornin', enjoy your dinner.” He bussed her on the cheek and opened the door of the bedroom beside hers with his key.

Rose glanced down the hall with a wink and a cheeky grin at John and said “oh, I intend to,” before slipping into her room and shutting the door behind her.

John thought he ought to send a card to the girl's dentist. Her smile ought to feature as a shining achievement in the physician's portfolio. He was wrenched from this reverie by Sherlock plucking the room key from his hand and shoving him unceremoniously into the room.

“Are you going to be able to keep your mind on the important things, or are you going to spend the entire evening thinking about her...” Sherlock trailed off momentarily and John was surprised and not a little amused to see a faint tinge of pink on those sharp cheekbones, “person?”

John grinned wickedly. “What's the matter, Sherlock? Can't say bum? Arse? Derriere?”

The pink deepened. “John,” Sherlock intoned, warningly.

“Breasts? Tits? Decolletage?”

“I'm noticing a pattern here, John.”

“Or what about her legs? Barely covered in that bathrobe, were they?”

“I can't say that I noticed,” Sherlock replied, haughtily, voice giving nothing away. The flush was still on his pale cheeks, however, and John grinned.

“You called her pretty earlier.”

“You are missing the point. This is precisely why you cannot do this interrogation alone. I will be coming.”

“She doesn't want you there, Sherlock, and she won't talk if you are. You intimidate people. They know that you solve crimes and it makes even innocent people feel guilty. You're certain that she is guilty, and I believe you, but she'll never talk with you around. She wants me first, so I'll be first.”

Sherlock sat on the bed with a petulant frown.

“You could go to the pub and interrogate the man.”

“I hate football. And pubs.”

“Then stay up here and sulk. Makes no matter to me. I need to shower and shave.”

~?~?~?~?~

Thirty minutes later John was standing outside of the door of room 55 in corduroy trousers and a button-down shirt, berating himself for being so nervous. Sherlock was right, this wasn't a date. John knew that he shouldn't be thinking about whether he should have worn a tie and jacket, he should be thinking about not blowing his cover and letting on to this girl that he knew her game.

The door in front of him opened before he'd even touched it and the girl who had introduced herself as Rose Tyler stood before him. She had changed out of the baggy black cargo pants from earlier and now wore trim black trousers and a blouse of some shimmery, floaty material the colour of an antique rose. Her hair was swept away from her neck in a low twist that allowed tendrils to escape about her face, giving the look softness. Her makeup was subtle- eyes darkened in some secret way of women to make them look both brighter and deeper, lips brightened and shiny to look as though she had been thoroughly snogged. She looked lovely.

“Do you know that you've been standing outside my door muttering to yourself for seven minutes?”

“I... what? You've been watching me?”

“Naturally. I expected your knock at least ten minutes ago.”

“Um... oh. Sorry.” John glanced at his watch. “Oh wow, I guess I wasn't keeping an eye on the time. Well, uh, do you want to go?”

“Sure thing, let me grab my purse and shoes. Come on in, no worries.”

Her purse was hanging on a peg near the door and she stepped into a pair of flat black shoes. John was oddly pleased that she chose not to wear heels. He wasn't a tall man, and if she'd worn more than an inch or so in heels, she wouldn't be shorter than him. He took the brief opportunity to look at her room knowing that Sherlock could probably have learned everything he needed to know from the 60 seconds that he had, but all John could see were some clothes (mostly black) peeking out of the top of her rucksack, a blue leather jacket hung beside her purse, and her laptop computer (a slim, black model with another large decal of a rose covering the manufacturer's name) open on her bed with the screen facing away from him.

Rose snagged her bag and led him back out of her room, locking the door behind her.

“Is the vegetarian restaurant all right for you? I'm not a picky eater. Like pretty much anything, me, but if you want a steak or something there's a little chop house up the way. 'Slong as we end up somewhere I can get chips, I'll be happy!”

This was the second time that the girl's love of chips had been mentioned. John took a surreptitious glance at her form and, while she was curved and soft in all the right places, she was not overly round anywhere that would indicate intemperance in her diet. She was quite fit.

“I... uh... whatever you like is fine with me.”

“Let's go ahead and take a walk to the chop house, it's a nice night and I do love a walk. Your partner in solving crime is less likely to be able to get an eavesdropping table there too.”

John frowned at her. “Is there a particular reason that you don't want Sherlock there or listening?”

“Actually, I'd love to have him there. I've wanted to meet him for ages, but I can tell that both of you have about a thousand questions for me, and I can tell it annoys him that he can't ask them,” she answered, grinning openly and, to John's eyes, honestly.

She took his arm as they left the hotel and, though she was leading him, John felt warmed by her presence.

“All right, Dr. Watson, now that we're outside, please feel free to begin your investigation into the two strange people who caught a ride in your car this evening.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Doctor, that I know that either you or Mr. Holmes have questions for me. He has probably told you his questions, so ask.”

John was silent for a few moments, sorting his thoughts and stealing glances as the woman whose hand was on his arm. Sherlock had seemed convinced that he and John would be the ones interrogated this evening, but the woman in pink next to him seemed happy to be the subject of his questions. She had asked nothing about what brought the two men to Devon. She had never implied that she was interested in their investigation nor even mentioned the Baskerville Research Facility. 

“Who are you?” John asked. Sherlock would be displeased at him tipping his hand so early, but he was having trouble thinking of the woman beside him as a suspect, and he honestly wanted to know the answer.

“Not a very creative question, particularly since I believe I answered it before. Rose Tyler, at your service.”

“Rose Tyler, of the Vitex Tylers?” John asked, not bothering to hide the skepticism from his voice.

“Rose Tyler, daughter of Jaqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler, nee Prentice and Peter Alan Tyler, from London. Peter Allen Tyler, who did, in fact, invent a health drink known as Vitex.”

“No, you aren't, so why don't you tell me your actual name.”

“Mr. Holmes tell you I'm not Rose Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“What gave him that impression? He's the one to call me out earlier.”

“Rose Tyler lives in London.”

“So she does, however, the last I checked, internal combustion engines and heavier-than-air travel had long since become common and there are trains, buses, zeppelins, cars, lorries, motorcycles, bicycles and one's own feet that can get a person from one place to another on this damp island, so what's to stop a citizen of London Town being in Devon? Pretty sure, even if the girl don't have her driving license, Rose Tyler can read a train schedule, and she's got plenty of doss to get a seat on a zeppelin. Otherwise, she could ride along with her mate and annoy him by changing the presets on his radio.”

“But you're not from London.”

“My accent and electricity bill say I am.”

They had arrived at the restaurant by now, and Rose lead John in by the elbow. She requested a table for two and they were shown to a small table in the corner. Rose chose the seat with her back to the wall, able to see the entire restaurant and leaving John with his back to it. John was uncomfortable with this arrangement, but her movements had brooked no arguments.

Rose took a quick check through the menu and laid it down beside her plate.

“I think I'll order a glass of wine. You're welcome to something if you'd like, but if you're to keep interrogating me, you might like to keep your head clear. Up to you.” Her smile was just a bit sly now, and laughter sparkled in her eyes.

“I may try the Devonshire Cider, I've heard good things.”

The waiter, showing impeccable timing, appeared at that moment to take their drinks orders. Rose raised a querying eyebrow at John when asked if they would like starters, but they both demurred. When the waiter left, Rose leaned forward, forearms on the edge of the table, eyes still twinkling.

“So, tell me, Doctor, why are you certain that I am a, not Rose Tyler, two- no- b, not from London and three, or c, or the three little “i's” that they use for footnotes- who am I?”

John studied her for a moment, bemusedly. “You're not Rose Tyler because she lives in London, you can't live in London and work here, and who you are...” at this, John wondered if he was tipping his hand too far, but he was beginning to wonder if Sherlock had gotten it all wrong about this woman, “you're an employee of the Baskerville Research Facility trying to determine what Sherlock is looking for there.”

Rose sat back, looking stunned. John had seen people with that look many times when Sherlock had pulled a complete history out of thin air before, and could understand the detective's smugness now that it was directed at him.

“And you believed that tripe?”

John's smug bubble burst.

“Tripe?”

“Tripe on a bike, all of it. Absolute bollocks, and poorly reasoned to boot. Clearly you're more of a novelist than I thought, and I was far too kind to your companion in the car.”

“What do you mean? Sherlock is absolutely never wrong, at least not completely.”

“Well he's wrong about me. He ignored our clothes, bought in London shops, our car with London tags and Mickey's and my London accents in favor of a completely paranoid theory built on a foundation of air, and you bought it. Why?”

“Why?”

“Why was he selling it, and why did you buy it? You don't strike me as the credulous sort, so what's wrong with your friend?”

“You're telling me you don't work for Baskerville?”

“That's what I'm telling you. Not that I don't know who they are, but I don't work for them. Don't even much like them.”

“And you want me to believe that you're Rose Tyler.”

At that, Rose reached into her purse and produced her wallet, tossing it towards him. He opened it and, in a plastic cover in the front was her driving license with her name 'Rose Tyler' and an address less than a mile away from his and Sherlock's digs in Baker Street.

As John looked the identification card over, checking for forgery, the girl pulled out her phone and fiddled with it briefly. Once he had returned her card to its holder, she held the phone out to him.

“The pertinent pictures are there if you swipe to the right, anything to the left isn't going to mean much to you.”

John immediately swiped left first, knowing that Rose was watching, but noting that she did not stop him and found a younger picture of the woman before him hand-in-hand with a tall, thin man with riotous brown hair and a mega-watt smile. They were standing before what appeared to be a 1950's Police Public Call box and both appeared to be laughing uproariously. He swiped back a few more pictures and found others of this girl with the same man. Always smiling, and often looking at each other rather than the camera. They appeared to be deeply in love. John then moved in the direction she had suggested and found pictures of Pete and Jackie Tyler at what appeared to be a birthday party for their small son, there were four candles on the cake. Pictures of Mickey and a good-looking man with a blonde crew cut. Pictures of Rose and Jackie Tyler where the resemblance between the two became impossible to deny. A picture of Rose and the blonde-headed man in formal attire- the dress, he recognized, that the heiress had worn to Jackie Tyler's birthday party in February of this year- and then another that was taken selfie-style of Mickey, the blonde man, and Rose, all in formal-wear, and all leaning close together to get into the small frame and laughing. A picture of six people, all dressed in black military-style uniforms, a small Asian woman, a dark-haired woman with a charming gap at the front of her smile, a haughty-looking brown-haired man, and the three he’d seen before, Rose, Mickey, and the blonde man, all with arms around each other looking comfortable.

When John looked up from the phone, he saw that Rose was sipping a glass of wine, and a glass of cider was set in front of him.

“I asked the waiter for a few more minutes to decide. Wasn't sure I should make a choice for you, seeing as how we only just met today,” she said, with a cheeky wink.

John picked up his cider and took a contemplative sip and nodded his approval.

“So you're Rose Tyler.”

“Since the day I was born.”

“And you don't work for Baskerville.”

“Nope,” she said, popping the ultimate consonant cheerfully.

“And you're not here because of Sherlock and me.”

“'Fraid not. Nice bit of luck for me, getting to meet my favorite author and my favorite character all in one day, but that's all it is: luck. You could take a look at the engine of the Land Rover and see that it's actually broken, if you wanted.”

The waiter reappeared then, asking if he could take their orders.

“I probably ought to be demure and delicate and get a salad, but I don't want one. I'll have the Filet Mignon and chips, please.”

“That comes with soup or a salad.”

“Well, in that case, I'll be demure and delicate and have the salad,” she said with a cheerful grin at the waiter. The waiter, a good-looking young man, grinned back at her. Her smiles were like that- it was hard not to respond to them in kind.

“And you, sir?”

“The shepherd’s pie, please.”

“Soup or salad?”

“Salad for me as well, thanks.”

“Anything else I can get for you two at this time?”

“Thanks, Eric, but no,” Rose said with another smile and the young man (Eric, apparently) left.

“You're not from here, but you know his name?” John asked, suddenly suspicious again.

“He introduced himself when he took our drink orders. Not my fault you didn't listen.”

John had a vague recollection of the young man doing just that. This woman might be as observant as Sherlock. More so, about some things- Sherlock noticed things with incredible focus, but he tended to miss people completely.

“All right, Doctor, now that you believe that I am who I say I am, have you any other questions, or will you need to regroup to reassess your understanding of me before I get interrogated further?” She said it with no malice, merely curiosity.

“Sherlock may have further questions for you, but I have one myself.”

“As Sherlock Holmes' right hand, or as Dr. John Watson, the man I asked on a date this evening?”

“More the second than the first, assuming that you asked Captain John Watson on a date as well as Doctor John Watson. What is your military history?”

“Classified, unfortunately. I'd love to tell you, if you can get the clearance. I think you, of all people, would understand, but I can't tell you over dinner.”

John nodded, thoughtfully. “Just your rank then.”

“Brigadier.”

John's head shot up and his eyes opened wide. “But you can't be more than... 28, 29 at the most.”

“I think I should be quite offended. I'm 27.”

“And a Brigadier?”

“The rank was fairly earned, Captain, I assure you.”

John looked at her. She wasn't smiling now. She looked quite serious, her whiskey-coloured eyes wide and honest. He nodded and sat back in his chair.

“Is the interrogation over already? We haven't even gotten our salads. Whatever shall we discuss now, Doctor?”

“Why do you call me Doctor like it's a name?”

“A couple of reasons, actually. Though you were introduced to me as John, you have not given me express permission to use your first name, and I think names are important- hate to use one that you’ve not given me leave to. Secondly, I think that being a doctor is the best sort of thing to be, and being known by that title can make a person... better. Mickey's girlfriend is a doctor, and I tend to call her Doctor as well. Doctor Jones.”

“You and Mickey aren't...?”

Rose laughed, and John joined her shortly. “You read too many tabloids. Mick and I dated when we were kids, yeah? But no, we're not together now. He's the best friend I could ever have, and Martha is much better for him than I ever was.”

“So... this... uh... date is...?”

Rose smiled sweetly. “Well, it's a chance for me to get to meet my favorite blogger, have a nice meal, and pay back a new acquaintance for giving me a lift all in one go. It's an evening out with a good-looking man away from the Paparazzi, who are usually quick to assume anyone I'm spending time with must be a new shag, and my mother, who has a tendency to believe them. It's steak and chips. It's something ordinary and domestic.”

“Not romantic, then?”

“Tell me a little bit about your dream girl, Doctor.”

John raised an eyebrow at the young, pretty blonde across the table from him. She was smiling in a guileless way, and seemed honestly interested in what he was going to say.

John told her about a girl who would listen to him talk. Who wanted to hear his stories. Who could cook an excellent lasagna, but hated doing dishes. Who would one day want a house and a dog and nappies and a simple life as a doctor's wife. Who would fall asleep with her ear over his heart, but wake as easily as he did if his phone rang for him to come into the hospital on an emergency. He wanted that life, and occasionally interspersed, he wanted the madness and adrenaline of being Sherlock's right hand.

Rose Tyler smiled at him. “You want to meet a girl at 2 AM on a rainy night because she offered to share a cab with you. That's... perfect,” she murmured, voice just slightly wistful. “I'm not a 2 AM cab ride though. I'm an alien invasion. I'm saving the universe before tea. I'm the sort of person who says they'll be back in 12 hours who you don't see for 12 months. I'm the girl who runs into danger and laughs like a loon. I think I'm probably not right for anybody, but especially someone who wants ordinary. Who wants quiet and peaceful and happy. I'm none of those things,” she concluded with a smile.

John had watched her face through this monologue. If Irene Adler had taught him anything, it was that a person could tell a thousand lies and never give a single tell, but that telling the truth was much more obvious. This girl was, to the best of his senses, completely honest. He wondered what she meant by alien invasions and saving the universe, but he was also certain that she would not tell him.

“Well then, Rose Tyler. I get one night with a celebrity, and I don't think I could have picked a better one.”

Her smile could have powered the entire town for a week.


	5. Beginning Again

At 5 AM the following morning, as the sun had barely begun to lick the hills of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes could be found in the lounge of the inn, brooding. The innkeeper had found him there, huddled into his coat, at about 4:30, had offered him coffee and tea, and tried to engage him in conversation. Sherlock had ignored the man, save for a pointed, cold glare. He now sat with his cup of coffee growing cold in his hand.

Sherlock had been wrong. He’d been wrong before, but always because he had missed something tiny, or he’d been cleverly lied to, or (in cases he had worked with Mycroft) something had been deliberately hidden. He had never willfully ignored the obvious in favor of a self-aggrandizing pet theory. Even with the Adler woman, he had never lost objectivity like that. Sherlock trusted John’s analysis of Rose Tyler- though he would never admit it to him Sherlock knew that John was a much better judge of humanity than he was.

Thinking about The Woman (even in his mind, the capital letters were there, and he never spoke her name or the appellation aloud) reminded him of his mistakes with her. He was no stranger to showing off. In fact, it could be argued that showing off was all he ever did. His mistake had been underestimating The Woman. He had assumed that she was ordinary, with ordinary motivations. She had been extraordinary save that she had fallen prey to emotions- not love, as he had accused, but infatuation and lust. By the end, he had thought very highly of her, but he had walked away easily enough. 

However, if his actions with Rose Tyler had been any indication, his objectivity had been compromised. Simply because a woman had surprised him, he had assumed that he was both wrong about her, and that she was out to get him. Would he have done the same had it been Mickey Smith who had caused the shock? Sherlock thought not, somehow.

Could he have completely lost his objectivity where women were concerned? Had The Woman done that to him?

Sherlock was not one to second-guess himself, yet here he sat, wondering if perhaps he was too broken to continue in the one line of work to which he was suited. What would he do if he could no longer detect? Get a job in a shop? Become a bookkeeper or criminal or chef or teacher?

“Your coffee’s gone cold, you know.”

Sherlock looked up in shock. People’s voices did not enter his reverie when he was lost in thought, and yet this one had. Perhaps only because it was the subject of his ruminations, yet he was still surprised.

Rose Tyler stood before him, holding out a mug with steam coming off the top, in her other hand was another steaming mug of what his nose told him was tea. She was dressed as she had been the evening before when they had met- black cargo trousers and a fitted black vest top. Her shoes were interesting: thick-soled boots with reinforced caps, but not steel. They were light enough to run or move silently over the ground. He could have identified the shop in London where her trousers and top were purchased, but the shoes were wholly unfamiliar to him. Her trousers were loose enough to hide the weapon that was affixed again to her thigh. Her dyed hair was pulled back in a sleek tail. Sherlock had peeked through the keyhole to see her and John leaving. She had been unarmed then and dressed quite differently. Sherlock looked at the cup in his hand, the coffee showed no sign of steam, and smelled slightly sour. He had no interest in finishing it, but his ego warred against him taking the coffee offered by the woman before him.

Sherlock sighed and tossed back the disgusting contents of his cup.

“No need, I’ve had a cup of coffee this morning.”

Rose Tyler smiled, as though she had been expecting that. She, nevertheless, set the steaming cup on the table at his elbow.

“Mind if I sit? Mickey won’t be up until 6:30 at the earliest. I won’t bother you, I’ve a book.” She withdrew a battered paperback from her pocket to prove the point. It was a well-thumbed copy of Great Expectations.

“You’ve read it before.”

She smiled, “quite right. Several times, in fact. Do you ever get tired of making pronouncements like that? Telling people things they already know about themselves? Suppose it makes for a great pub game.”

“Do you ever get tired of psychoanalyzing everyone you meet and using humor to hide that fact?”

Rose grinned. “You’re back on form, Mr. Holmes. Yes, I do get tired of it, but it’s hard to turn off, isn’t it? Particularly when it’s a defense mechanism.” She stopped for a moment, then frowned. “Shit, I’m doing it again. Sorry.”

Sherlock frowned at her. “The tabloids don’t have a single thing right about you, do they?”

“They’re bound to get something correct on occasion, even if it is entirely by accident. But for the most part, no. The fashion-obsessed false-blonde who goes to a different London club every Thursday and a society event every Saturday is fiction. Not that my hair color is natural or anything, but the rest of it is a front.”

“So who is Rose Tyler?”

Rose opened her mouth, then closed it again. She looked Sherlock over. Were he another man, he might have felt flattered at the attention, but were he another man he would not have noticed that the look in her eyes was not lust or even appreciation, but calculation and wariness.

The she smiled at him, not the predator’s smile from the previous night when he had first asked who she was, but a much gentler thing. Sherlock felt it hit his psyche like a shot of good cognac, warming him from the inside. He gave himself a mental shake to dispel the fancy, but he could not stop himself returning the smile with a smirk of his own.

“No, Sherlock Holmes, why don’t you tell me who Rose Tyler is. Tell me what you would have seen last night, if I hadn’t scared you.”

“You didn’t frighten me.”

“Liar. You were 100% correct about me and Mickey until I got into your head, then, suddenly, you were 100% wrong. Either you’re less the genius that I had been led to believe, or something frightened you.”

Sherlock glared at her. She made him uncomfortable, so he felt inclined to make her uncomfortable in turn.

“Fine, I shall tell you about yourself. As I said last night, you work for the military. You move like a soldier, special or covert operations rather than standard foot. Despite being six years younger than him and a woman, you are the commanding officer to your companion, and he seems to have no issues with that. You and he, though perhaps not currently sleeping together, have in the past. There is history there, and resentment, though it is buried beneath the surface.” Sherlock felt a smug pleasure as girl before him shifted uncomfortably. On the money, then. He continued, “your accents are poverty-class, East End London. You probably left school early and returned as an adult. You have too much knowledge to have not attended university, but your syntax is not elevated enough to indicate that you remained through your basic schooling. You have never been married, or if you were you did not wear a ring. You did have someone once, a man. You wear that chain about your neck, even when dressed for a date or for work. It is not a piece that would have a dedicated pendant, but it hangs with a weight that is too heavy for a woman’s engagement or wedding ring. It is heavy enough for a man’s ring. That you have a ring of his but no ring of your own indicates that you had more affection for him than he for you. A woman with a paucity of years in a position of such authority in the military implies someone who has given her life over to her job, expending no time on romance or family. The man you love is dead,” here Sherlock paused and did not miss Rose’s blink, “no, not dead then, he left you. He left you, but you have defined your entire life by him, and he did not love you like you love him. How cliché.”

Sherlock sat back smugly to watch his blows fall, but watching the bloom recede from her cheeks and the sparkle in her eye dim, he felt his smugness fade. He could see that he had been cruel, like he occasionally was to Molly. He had intended to make this woman uncomfortable, he had not intended to deal her the kind of hurt that he could now see in her face. Sherlock knew that he was a cold, calculating and dismissive bastard of a man and normally causal cruelty didn’t concern him, but he had chosen to hurt her, and that seemed wrong somehow.

Sherlock reached over to where Rose’s hand was draped over the arm of her chair, his fingers hovering over the back of her hand, but not touching.

“Ms. Tyler?”

Rose’s eyes returned from the middle distance. “I suppose I asked for that,” she said, ruefully, with a twitch to the right side of her mouth that did not reach her eyes. “That was much more what I expected from the great Sherlock Holmes.” She sighed and tried a bit harder with the smile this time, lifting both sides of her mouth, though her eyes were still tense. “They do say you should never meet your heroes,” she said as she rose from the chair, sliding her hand away from where Sherlock’s remained hovering. She swallowed the last of what was in her cup and bade him farewell as she made to leave the room.

“Ms. Tyler,” Sherlock said again, stopping her at the door. She turned to him, eyes guarded.

Sherlock opened his mouth to apologize for the faded light in her eyes, the tension around her mouth, and the smile that she couldn’t seem to bring out. Instead, what he said was “was I right?”

“Yeah, you were,” she bit off, and it was as cold as he had ever heard her voice to this point- not angry, but brooking no response. “Or close enough as makes no difference, though I’m only five years younger than Mickey. Your coffee will be getting cold again.” And with that pronouncement, she left the room.

Sherlock picked up the coffee that she had brought him, and took a sip. He was shocked- aside from being somewhat tepid, it was perfect. Sweetened, and without milk, precisely as he took it. He sighed again, disgusted with himself. She had brought him coffee and he had allowed his pride to dismiss the gesture. She had offered him a chance to reassert his ego with her but he had allowed that same ego to hurt her. She had tried to be friendly to him and he had been an ass.

Sherlock did not normally think about how his actions affected the people around him, but for some reason, when it came to Rose Tyler, he found himself wishing that he was better versed in the mores of friendship. There was nothing for it, however. He was not here to make friends; he was here to solve a case. Perhaps later he could solve the mystery that was Rose Tyler.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose had been woken with the sun by a picture message on her mobile of her perpetually early-rising brother helping her stepfather make pancakes. With that image warming her heart, she had dressed and gone down to the dining room of the inn. As she had passed the lounge, she had seen Sherlock sitting alone, staring into the middle distance. She had looked at him for a few minutes, noting the sense of loneliness and stress that seemed to fill the air around him. He reminded her, in that moment, of her first Doctor and, without thinking, she reacted the way she would have for him.

Rose had gone and gotten herself a cup of tea, and Sherlock a cup of coffee- her first Doctor had drunk coffee, and he was the only person that Rose had ever prepared the stuff for. Rose, Jackie, Mickey, Pete and her second Doctor all drank tea, but Jack and her first Doctor were fiends for the bitter beverage. Jack drank his black, and the Doctor took his sweet. Rose had prepared the Doctor’s coffee when they were together, and she made the same cup for Sherlock that morning by force of habit.

She had half expected the proud refusal of her proffered olive branch and took no offense. She had expected him to ignore her once she sat (as the Doctor would have) and give her an hour to enjoy her book in the quiet with the soothing presence of another human nearby. However, he had questioned her and she had given him the opportunity to shore up his wounded pride with her- and he had done so at the expense of her pride and composure. She had been comparing him to the Doctor all morning, and here he was again reminding her of her mad, daft alien friend. This was not one of the memories that she cherished, however- this was her Doctor (both of them) at their most cruel- reminding her that he was far above her and her human weakness of emotions and attachment.

She tried not to blame Sherlock, as she fled the field. She was doctor of psychology, and she knew that, despite being human, he was probably a sociopath, disassociating from emotions. He might realize that he had been cruel after the fact, but he would never apologize- his ego would not allow it. He was a genius and he would not consider her emotions worth the damage to his pride. She knew the sort only too well- knew the exhaustion of being the emotional punching bag to a man who refused to acknowledge intimacy.

Rose made it upstairs to Mickey’s door before her control over the wave of loss snapped. She knocked on his door as her eyes filled with tears, but he did not answer.

“Mickey? Are you awake?”

He didn’t answer. She leaned her ear on the door and heard the sound of soft singing. He was in the shower.

Rose pounded her fist against the wood of his door, leaving her forehead against it as well. “Dammit all,” she murmured as the first tears escaped from behind her closed eyelids.

“Rose?”

Rose started away from the door, opening her eyes to see the blurred image of John Watson swimming through the lens of her tears towards her.

“Doctor- John!” The doctor had given her permission the previous evening to call him ‘doctor’ if she wanted, but not ‘Dr. Watson,’ and he would prefer if she called him ‘John.’

“Are you all right?” he asked, coming closer. He watched her wipe her cheeks with the flat of her hand and knew that the truthful answer was ‘no.’

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” Rose said, shakily, then let out a watery sort of laugh. “I know that sounds entirely convincing, considering, but really, it’s not important.”

“Is Sherlock downstairs?”

“Um… yeah, yeah he is.”

“And you’ve spoken with him this morning?”

“Look, John, it’s really nothing. Well, maybe it’s not nothing to me, but it’s nothing to Mr. Holmes, and it’s really not something you can blame him for.”

“Like hell I can’t. Look, Sherlock is used to people being intimidated by him because he’s more brilliant than anyone he’s ever met, except possibly his brother who he holds in complete contempt. You were one of the only people I’ve ever seen stand up to the force of his mind and not bend. He needs that! He needs to be brought down a peg! You should be down there demanding an apology!”

Rose blinked at John. “You’re right,” she said in absolute wonder. “I’ve spent five years becoming someone new. I wanted to be cleverer and stronger and braver, but back when I was 19, I could stand up to the most intelligent and powerful man in the universe and hold my own. I could get an apology out of him. Shows what good a traditional education does.” Her voice had gradually softened to a murmur, and John had barely heard anything after the word ‘braver,’ but she suddenly looked up at him with a brilliant light in her eyes, and a smile returned.

The door behind them opened, and Mickey Smith stood, hair damp, but dressed for the day. Rose turned to him, threw her arms around him, and planted an enthusiastic kiss right on his mouth.

“Mickey, I am thrilled, but I’m furious with you,” she said with a grin after removing her mouth from his with a pop.

“So what else is new,” he asked, bemused, looking down at her with an indulgent smile.

“You let me become so educated I couldn't see my nose in front of my face!” she cried.

“Wasn't any stopping you, gorgeous, and are you really sorry for that doctorate?”

“Nope.” She popped the 'p' as she always seemed to when using that word. “But I apparently forgot the right way to deal with an arrogant genius who can't remember that he's human. Used to be I was the best in the universe at that.”

“Probably still are, just needed to get back into practice,” the young man said, and dropped a kiss on her nose.

Rose whirled on John, threw her arms around his neck as well, cried “thank you,” and planted an even more enthusiastic kiss on his mouth. This one lasted several long moments with Mickey chuckling in the background. During the course of the kiss, a set of footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

“John!” Sherlock cried out, seeing his best friend kissing Rose Tyler quite enthusiastically.

Rose removed her mouth from John’s with a pop similar to Mickey’s and turned away from the gobsmacked doctor towards the glowering detective.

“You, Sherlock Holmes, owe me an apology. However,” she said, waylaying the response he was clearly about to make with a raised hand, “I owe you an apology as well. I’ve been trying to get into your head since the beginning. I’ve let what I know take over who I am. I’m really sorry, I know what it’s like for people to assume they can get into your head ‘cause they’ve heard a few things about you. When I was in Uni, it used to drive me crazy that the other Psych students would assume they knew everything about someone just ‘cause of what we studied, and there was me, acting like a kid. I’m really sorry and, if you’ll let me, I’d like to start over with you.”

Over the course of this speech, Rose had moved in close to Sherlock. She looked up at him with those wide, gold eyes and the sweet smile that warmed him in ways he’d never been warm before. Sherlock took a deep breath, and took his pride in hand, saying, “Ms. Tyler, I would also like to apologize to you. I was needlessly cruel to you before. There was no call for it, and I am sorry. I would be honored if you would let me start over with you as well.”

Neither of them were looking at John to see his eyes widen in surprise even greater than when the pretty blonde heiress had snogged him.

Rose reached her hand out to Sherlock. “M’name’s Rose Tyler, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Sherlock, gingerly took her hand and surprised her by not shaking it, but raising the back of it to his lips and brushing them over her knuckles. “Hello, Rose Tyler,” he said, rolling her name on his tongue, causing her to widen her eyes. “I’m Sherlock Holmes, and the pleasure is entirely mine.”


	6. Breakfast

“Right,” Rose said, slightly breathless, removing her hand from Sherlock's. “Good plan, glad to be a part of it. Mickey,” she continued, turning to her partner, “come buy me a cup of tea.”

“Tea's free in the lounge, sweetheart,” Mickey said, moving forward to offer her his arm.

“Then you can buy me toast,” she replied, hugging his arm to her as they walked down the narrow stairs.

Sherlock and John remained at the top for a moment.

“What was that?” John asked, seeing Sherlock's eyes following the blonde woman down the steps.

“What was what, John? I do not answer questions in which there is no direct object. Let's join them for breakfast.” And Sherlock was off. John could not decide if he was running towards the petite blonde, or away from John's questions. The result was the same in the end, Sherlock was downstairs talking to the young pair from London by the time John had followed, and they were agreeing to breakfast in the open air.

It was now late enough that there were carts opening in the village square selling hot beverages and breakfast pastries. The foursome went to a cart and Mickey bought Rose her tea and a lemon Danish, and a cup of tea and a croissant for himself. The two went to a bench in the sun and sat together taking in the surroundings like the soldiers they were while the other two men bought their coffees and breakfasts and walked over to join them.

The four Londoners discussed the pretty weather, and the city from which they all came- Mickey and Sherlock discovering that the bank of flats where Rose and Mickey both lived were less than a mile from Sherlock and John's flat on Baker Street. Rose and John had determined the same the previous evening. Rose's attention was caught by a young man across the square giving 'ghost hound tours.' She allowed the mens' conversation to flow around her as she frowned at the man across the way, trying to think of what the tickle in the back of her mind was as she looked at him.

In a shocking burst of clarity, she realized that she had an appointment at the Baskerville Research Facility that afternoon and had, in fact, been accused the previous night of working for the same facility, and here was a man advertising about a 'ghost hound.'

“You thought I worked for Baskerville,” Rose said to Sherlock, interrupting Mickey and John's conversation about football. He had been watching her with some interest as strange emotions played across her face. “You're investigating Baskerville, aren't you?” she said, growing more excited, “and you're investigating the Ghost Hound as well. Oh my God, you're investigating the Hound of Baskerville! That is,” her voice suddenly became reverent, and her eyes had not left Sherlock's, despite his face growing more and more confused, “so completely fantastic. Isn't that fantastic, Mickey,” she said, turning to that man now, who was also looking at Sherlock with a mix of wonder and thrill.

“You're looking into the Hound of Baskerville,” Mickey repeated.

“Aren't you?” Rose asked with a squeak in her voice.

Sherlock frowned at them both and nodded, causing both of their faces to break into mad grins.

“Oh my God. We got to meet Sherlock Holmes when he's investigating the Hound of Baskerville, Mick. That is possibly the most brilliant thing we've done since... since Norway, anyway.”

The bells in the village church rang seven changes at that moment.

“Gods,” Rose cried, jumping up, “is that really the time? We've places to be, Mick, and we have to go check on the car before we can go anywhere.” She turned away from her partner and threw her arms around John. “Doctor, I have a feeling that this is going to be your best story yet,” she said, warm breath on his ear. She laid a smacking kiss on his cheek, and turned to Sherlock, who she took completely by surprise by hugging just as fiercely, and placing a warm kiss on his cheek as well. “As for you,” she said, leaning back with her arms still around his neck, “be completely brilliant on this one, all right?” She laughed at herself and let go of him then. “Never mind, you don't need me to tell you.”

She grabbed Mickey's hand and the two of them hurried off the square, heads together, laughing and talking. Before they walked off down the road, Rose turned and waved at the two men who were still watching her disappear.

John looked at Sherlock, who had a hand to his cheek where Rose's mouth had been and a flush of blood had coloured his pale skin pink. John might have laughed, but he could still feel the burn where her mouth had touched his face as well. He wasn't sure what it was about Rose Tyler, but she was a force of nature. John sincerely hoped that this was not the last he would see of her.


	7. Chapter 7

By early afternoon, Mickey and Rose had their Land Rover back in working order and were driving through the Devonshire countryside towards the Baskerville facility.  They were in Devon to inspect Baskerville themselves.  Torchwood was the foremost physics research facility in the world, coming out ahead of even CERN in Geneva.  They did not have biological and chemical facilities, however- those were farmed out to research institutions all over the country.  Baskerville was a massive biological research facility currently run under the auspices of the British Army.  They did not answer to Torchwood directly, but Torchwood took a special interest in all scientific research and development done in Great Britain and inspected all facilities.  Pete Tyler, the director of Torchwood was also interested in the possibility of acquiring the facilities for Torchwood’s work, so Rose and Mickey had been sent to make nice and to check that everything being done there was on the up-and-up.  Rose and Mickey, Defenders of the Earth were representing the bureaucracy and they both hated it.

 

Normally their team would have consisted of the two of them and four others, Rose as lead, Mickey as her right hand, Jake, Gwen, Toshiko and Owen.  Rose had been shocked when she met Gwen, who was the mirror image of Gwyneth, the girl she had met in Cardiff 1869 who had saved the world from the Gelth by sacrificing herself.  Now that she'd met the real Sherlock Holmes, a hundred years out of his time, she decided that Gwen wasn't as weird as she had thought, back when they'd first met.  The team had been finalized a year before and now worked together seamlessly, save when Owen's tendency to be a pillock got out of hand.  They might have all come down for this assignment, but this wasn’t about defending the Earth.  There wouldn’t be any aliens or adventures, just laboratories and diplomatic relations.

 

Being ex-time travelers, the best of the best of Torchwood, and ostensibly adults did not stop Rose and Mickey from spending several hours reiterating how entirely brilliant it was that they had met Sherlock Holmes during his most famous case ever.  There weren’t any adventures planned, so they enjoyed the fact that they’d found one on their own.

 

“Did you ever read the _Hound of Baskerville_ , Mick?”

 

“Yeah, once back in secondary.”

 

“Well, how’d it go?”

 

“Blimey, Rose, it’s been 15 years.  Let’s see, there was a dog…”

 

“Funnily enough, Mick, I’d sussed that one out for myself.”

 

“Well, the whole thing sounds like a ghost story, so the dog was real and that was a big deal.  Now shut up or I won’t tell you what happened.”

 

Rose grinned, but made a zipping motion across her lips.

 

“Okay, so there was a dog and it was painted with phosphorous paint to make it glow in the dark.  I remember that especially ‘cause the Literature teacher had the Chemistry teacher explain phosphorous to us the week we were reading it.”

 

“Okay, so we’ve got a glow-in-the-dark dog.  Did it kill people?”

 

“Yeah, I think so.  Or maybe it was the other person, ‘cause there was a person who was the bad guy, and they were using the dog to scare people.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“To the dog?”

 

“Sure, but the rest of the book too.” 

 

“I really don’t remember the motives or anything really.  It was a long time ago.  I think it had something to do with inheritances though.”

 

“Not much of a motive for the 20th century, is it?”

 

“Not so much, no.”

 

“What about the dog?”

 

“You won’t like it.  Sherlock shoots it.”

 

“No!” Rose cried, horrified, “but it’s just a dog!  What about the guy, did he go to jail?”

 

“I don’t think so.  For some reason I think he died too.”

 

“Does Sherlock shoot him as well?”

 

“No.  I can’t really remember what happened to him, but I think he was dead at the end of it.”

 

“Hope we don’t run into aliens,” Rose said to Mickey, sounding worried- they did tend to run into aliens and alien tech more often than most.  “I'd hate to have to ask John to keep that out of his blog.  And he has to write this story up; it's the most important one.”

 

“Eh, they'd just assume he was a conspiracy nutter.  His readership'd probably double with mad people overnight.”

 

“Mickey, this isn't a joke.  In our universe, the stories of Sherlock Holmes were like... Harry Potter!  Everyone read _The Strand_ when Conan Doyle published.”

 

“The Doctor tell you that?”

 

“Well, yeah.  He loved Sherlock Holmes... wish he could have met him, he'd have totally geeked out.  Back when he was still in leather he told me that Arthur Conan Doyle had based Sherlock Holmes off of him.”

 

“I wondered why you seemed so sweet on him earlier.”

 

Rose smacked Mickey on the arm.  “Seriously though, we can't use Retcon or anything for this, 'cause the story has to be told.  Maybe we can talk him into keeping it to himself, yeah?”

 

“You could talk old Big-Ears into almost destroying the world for you.  John Watson keeping the secret of aliens is going to be a piece of cake.  What about Holmes though?”

 

“What about him?”

 

“Rose, you've made a hell of an impression on him.  You planning on keeping him around?”

 

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Mickey,” Rose said, primly.

 

“You haven't had a bloke since Norway, despite what you claim to your mother.  Now you've met a bloke who might as well be a human version of the Doctor.  Are you going to pursue that?”

 

“You know why I haven't had a bloke, Mick.  What happens if I fall in love and have to make a full disclosure of who I am and where I come from?”

 

“You mean the part where you're from another universe?  Once they understand about Torchwood, it's not so bad as all that.  Martha dealt with it pretty well.”

 

“Martha has tons of imagination.  Sherlock is much more logical- I’d be asking him to believe the impossible.”

 

“You’ve got a pretty hearty piece of evidence on that chain around your neck, babe,” Mickey said, gently.  He was right of course, the TARDIS key that, even now, Rose wore constantly, was an element that was completely unknown on Earth in either dimension and, thus far, had remained unknown to anyone she showed it to from another planet in this dimension.

 

“And I guess that would be all right, but then I have to tell them about the Doctor.  Not only am I an alien in this universe, but my first real love was a minor god in the last universe.  How's a normal man's ego supposed to handle that?”

 

“Somehow I think Sherlock's ego could withstand it.”

 

“That's the other thing, Mick, if it were Sherlock, then I have to explain that in my universe, he's a fictional character from the late 19th century.  You don't think that would cause an identity crisis?”

 

“You'll never know unless you tell him.  Besides, who's to say there isn't a universe where the adventures of Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith and the Doctor aren't a set of books, or a show on the telly?  Those kinds of things leak through the walls of the universes all the time.”

 

“I still don't know, Mick.  He's like the Doctor in other ways too- this morning I asked him to tell me about myself.  I wanted to give him back his pride after he cocked everything up yesterday.  He was good.  Excellent, actually.  He was completely right, except that he thought this key was a man’s ring.  He told me that I had a memento from the man, but not one of my own (he thought it would be a ring, obviously), and that proved that I’d loved him more than he loved me.”

 

“I always told you that, though.  Especially after France.”

 

“I know.  And it wasn’t that he said anything that surprised me.  I know the psychology behind it- it’s more that I know that everything he said was calculated to hurt me.  I’d made him uncomfortable, so he slapped at me mentally.”

 

“But then you made him apologize.”

 

“Haven’t lost my touch, I suppose.  And that’s it- he really is like the Doctor.  I’d have to drag him into apologizing to me, and it’d be like pulling teeth to get him to admit upset or fear or doubt… or love.  Another man who’d never be able to get out those three words that I’d love to hear again from someone other than my parents and little brother.  Another man who might wander off and ignore me because something more interesting came along.”

 

“Somehow, I think with Sherlock Holmes, the 'something interesting' is less likely to be a French courtesan, and more likely to be a serial killer.”  Mickey became completely serious now. “He wouldn't be easy, and he wouldn't be safe, but Rose, if you haven't learned that the last thing you want is easy and safe, then you're not paying enough attention.”

 

“Reckon you're right.  I'll think about it.  He's a bit of all right though, isn't he?”

 

“Reminds me of a younger, prettier version of Big-Ears.”

 

“Do you know,” Rose laughed, “I was thinking the same thing last night.  Dark hair, light eyes, diamond-edged cheekbones...”

 

“You're drooling, Rose.”

 

She hit him on the arm again, and he was only saved from further abuse because they had arrived at the gates of the Baskerville facility.

 

Mickey rolled down his window and called out to the man approaching the Land Rover, “Brigadier Tyler and Major Smith reporting from Torchwood.  I believe you were apprised of our arrival this afternoon?”

 

A member of security took their identifications to run them through the system.  The security clearances provided by Torchwood were universally high, even receptionists and office managers in the Torchwood offices had clearances as high as aids direct to the President of Great Britain.  By virtue of their exalted positions in Torchwood, Mickey and Rose could access nearly any secret in the People's Republic.  Getting into Baskerville was practically easier done than said.  Their Land Rover was escorted to the entrance, and they were met inside by a small group lead by a man in military fatigues.

 

The man in front saluted them and his eyes were on Mickey as he said “Brigadier.”

 

Mickey smiled, and deferred to Rose.  He always found it amusing to balk the expectation that the slightly older male of the pair of them was the senior officer.

 

Rose gave a hasty salute.  “At ease, we’re not in uniform.  And don’t bloody salute me.  How many times do I need to tell people that?” she asked with a tone of mild irritation.  It was well known that Rose, like the Doctor, hated that type of military formality.

 

The man in fatigues settled into parade rest, but did not relax further.  He did give her a slightly skeptical look and repeated, “Brigadier Tyler?”

 

Rose stepped forward with her hand extended, “Rose Tyler, at your service.”  As she shook his hand, she gestured to her partner with her left. “Major Mickey Smith, my right hand.”

Mickey stepped forward, hand extended as well.  He didn’t mind saluting, but he enjoyed watching Rose toy with the military personnel like a cat with a beetle, and he could somehow tell that the tense man in front of them would give her no end of amusement.

 

“Major,” Rose said in a cool voice, “you look like you have something you’d like to say.”

 

“Yes, _Brigadier_ ,” the man said, putting a slight emphasis on Rose’s title that caused both Rose and Mickey to raise their eyebrows. “Is this inspection really necessary?  This institute has nothing to do with Torchwood.”

 

“Torchwood inspects all experimental and research facilities in the People’s Republic of Great Britain,” Rose said, her voice growing cooler and more precise with each word.  “Baskerville has not been inspected since the Cyberman issue in 2007.  Now that things have calmed back down, it is well past time for inspections to resume, don’t you think?”

 

“What I mean to say is…”

 

“What you mean to say is that Baskerville considers itself above the oversight of an organization like Torchwood, and you are welcome to those beliefs, however, your orders came from the desk of President Jones herself, and I would be happy to contact her for you if you still have objections.”

 

“No, _sir_ ,” the man said.

 

“Please feel free to call me Rose, or Ms. Tyler, or even Brigadier Tyler, if it will make you more comfortable.  No need to stand on ceremony, Major…” Rose said, waiting for an introduction.

 

“Barrymore, ma’am.”

 

“A pleasure, Major Barrymore,” Rose offered a smile that was not returned.

 

Suddenly two panicked looking young corporals (around Rose’s age, but they looked so young to her) rushed in to Major Barrymore.

 

“Sir, there are two people here for a surprise inspection.”

 

“We’re in the middle of an inspection now,” the Major cried, furiously, cutting his eyes to Rose and Mickey.

 

“Sir, it’s Mycroft Holmes, they have the highest clearance, we have to let them in.”

 

Rose thought fast.  “They’re with us,” she cried, earning herself some shocked glances from the men around her.  “This was supposed to be a joint inspection between our two offices- you know, get everything done at once.  I wasn’t expecting Mycroft’s representatives for another day yet.  Jolly good of them to make it on time- you know how the government can be,” she added with a cheerfully conspiratorial wink at the Major.  “Never expected Mycroft himself to come out, it’ll be lovely to see him again, it’s been months.  Please go get them, we can all take the tour together.  It’ll be grand.  Mickey and I don’t mind waiting here.  Or,” she added as though an afterthought, “is there a break room where we could get a cuppa?”

Major Barrymore glared at her, but the smile that Rose gave him was sunny and guileless.  With a terse order, one corporal was leading the two Torchwood agents to a small, grubby kitchenette, and the other was walking off with the Major to escort the second set of visitors.

 

Once they were alone in the kitchen, Mickey turned to Rose.

 

“What’s going on, babe?”

 

Rose was frowning at the minimal selection of teabags, finally settling on Earl Grey.  She added water to the electric kettle on the corner of the counter as she explained.

 

“I should have made the connection ages ago.  Mycroft must be Sherlock’s brother.  Honestly, their mother must have been completely mad.  Who names their kids Mycroft and Sherlock?”

 

“Focus, Rose.  Who is Mycroft?”

 

“You’ve met him.  He was at Mum’s birthday party in February.  Tall, balding, expensive suit, looks a bit like a rodent.”

 

“Rose, you just described half of the men who go to those parties.  I need more than that.”

 

“Anyway, the point is that Mycroft _is_ the British Government.  The entire British Government.”

 

“So he’s a friend of yours?  Pete’s?  Harriet’s?”

 

“Not a chance… well, I could be wrong about Harriet.  See, the thing is that Mycroft is the British Government except for Torchwood, and Pete and I aren’t about to let him get his greasy paws on it.”

 

“You really don’t like this bloke, do you?”

 

“Picture a tall, thin, balding Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series.”

 

“Sounds like a right joy.  So you’ve invited him on this tour with us… why?”

 

“Because Mycroft never leaves London.  There’s a less than zero percent chance that it’s actually Mycroft out there, but I would bet my mother’s favorite diamond necklace that it’s Sherlock and John using his name.”

 

“Blimey, he don’t wait long to get back in touch after a date, does he?”

 

“Shut up, Mickey.”

 

Rose had made two Styrofoam cups of tea and was digging through the break room’s overstuffed refrigerator for milk or cream when the ‘representatives of the office of Mycroft Holmes’ arrived in the room with Major Barrymore.

 

“Major,” Rose said, head still in the cooler, “do you know that the only milk in here has been out of date for three weeks?  How do you people drink tea, nevermind coffee, without milk?  Besides that it’s unsanitary.  This whole fridge is disgusting.  I pity the first person to get tired of it and throw everything out.”  She pulled her head out, turned to Mickey and said, “you’ll have to drink it black, sorry, Mick.”  With that she turned to the newcomers, approaching Sherlock with a bright smile on her face.  “Mycroft,” she said, reaching for his hand and kissing the air by his cheek, “it’s wonderful to see you again, it’s been months.  I believe the last time I saw you was my mother’s birthday party in February.  I didn’t expect you to come out for the inspection yourself.  Good on you for taking a personal interest.  You, naturally, remember my partner, Major Smith.”  She then turned to John, and offered a hand as though to a stranger. “Brigadier Rose Tyler, of the Torchwood Institute, and my right hand, Major Mickey Smith, and you are?”

 

John blinked once before taking her hand, “Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers.”  He shook her hand raising a single eyebrow in a question that she did not answer.

 

Rose nodded in an absent and dismissive way and turned back to the Major.  “Major Barrymore, will you be conducting us on the tour this afternoon?”

 

The Major cleared his throat before answering. “No, Brigadier Tyler, I’m afraid I haven’t the time today.  Your escort will be here shortly.  If you don’t mind, I need to get back to my office.”

 

“Off with you, then,” Rose said, dismissively, turning back to the two men. “May I offer you a bad cup of tea, or a worse cup of coffee?”

 

“With such a recommendation, how could I possibly refuse?” Sherlock asked smoothly.  “I’ll have the coffee, if you don’t mind.  Never had much of a taste for tea.”

 

“I’d prefer tea, thanks,” John muttered, as he watched the Major march out of sight.

 

Rose busied herself with hot drinks.  She made the same cup of coffee for Sherlock that she had made that morning: sweetened as a matter of course, but without milk or powdered creamer.  She slapped the cup into Sherlock’s hand and turned to John, “I was serious about there being no milk, I hope you don’t mind it black, and the only teabag over there that’s even marginally acceptable is Earl Grey, so I hope that’s all right as well.”

 

“Fine,” said John, noting that she hadn’t asked Sherlock how he took his coffee.

 

“Ms. Tyler,” Sherlock said, carefully, “I don’t recall ever telling you how I took my coffee.”

  
“I only know how to prepare coffee two ways, Mr. Holmes,” Rose said, concentrating on the boiling water and teabag before her, “black or sweet.  Any other way you want it and you’ll have to go to the corner café or make it yourself.  I don’t drink the horrid stuff, and there was only one person I was willing to learn to prepare it for.”

 

Sherlock’s eyes tracked to the silver chain about her neck that he had so viciously attacked her with just that morning.  She did not touch it when she spoke, it was not as obvious as that, but she had told him that he was right, and he was sorry to have opened the wound yet again.

 

When Rose delivered John his cup and took up her own, Sherlock stepped closer to her and asked, in a low voice, “do you actually know my brother?”

 

Rose smiled. “I do, yes.  Didn’t realize he was your brother until I heard his name mentioned a few minutes ago.  Finally all clicked, you know.  What was your mother thinking, Mycroft and Sherlock?  Anyway, he’s not terribly fond of me.”

 

Sherlock smirked back at her, “he’s not terribly fond of me either.”

 

“I suppose we shall have to shoulder the burden and soldier ever onward beneath our disappointment.”

 

Sherlock let out a surprised chuckle and asked, “what are you doing here?”

 

“We are actually here on Torchwood business, which is none of yours.  Didn't want anyone to figure out you weren't who you said you were though, so you can take the tour with us.”

 

“I’ve never heard of Torchwood,” Sherlock said, quietly.

 

“You still haven't, Mr. Holmes,” Rose said, warningly, taking a sip of her tea.  “Have you learned anything interesting about your ghost dog?”

 

“We’ve seen a plaster cast of his footprints and a wobbly mobile phone photo.”

 

“So there’s a real dog, not just some kind of mass hallucination?”

 

“We’re not here about a group hallucination, but a very specific one.  That of one Mr. Henry Knight.”

 

“And who’s he when he’s a home?”

 

Mickey spoke up. “I’ve heard that name before.  There was a documentary about Dartmoor on a few weeks back.  He says the ghost hound killed his dad back when he was a kid- seven or so.”

 

Rose looked shocked. “That’s horrible.  How old is he now?”

 

“’Bout your age, if I were to guess,” Mickey said.

 

“Then this happened ages ago.  Seems like a cold case, trying to find a dog that killed his dad now.”

 

“Ehm,” John began, “he says he saw it again.  Just recently.”

 

“The same dog?” Rose asked in mild disbelief.

 

“So he says,” John answered.

 

“But dogs don’t live that long,” she mused, quietly.

 

“That’s clever, Ms. Tyler,” Sherlock said, drily, “but what about _demon_ hounds?”

To John’s surprise, Rose nodded thoughtfully. “Might live longer than an average dog, but do they leave footprints?”  This last was, oddly enough, directed at Mickey, not Sherlock.  Mickey shrugged at her.

 

Rose then looked sharply around at Sherlock. “But you’re investigating Baskerville.  Biological research.  Either you or Mr. Knight think that it’s some genetic experiment from here, don’t you?”

 

Sherlock merely lifted a shoulder in a shrug.  Rose clearly didn’t believe him.

 

“This facility is surrounded by a minefield.  An escaped experiment wouldn’t make it out.  If, and I’m not saying I believe it, but _if_ this ghost hound of yours is a Baskerville experiment, it didn’t escape, it was taken out.  You’re not looking for an animal, Mr. Holmes, you’re looking for a person, I assure you.”

 

Mickey and Sherlock watched Rose speculatively.  John simply stood shocked.

 

At that moment, one of the corporals, Corporal Lyons arrived to take the four on the tour of the facility.  Rose removed a small notebook and a biro from one of the cargo pockets on her trousers and took notes as the young man led them through the facility. 

 

They got on the lift- Corporal Lyons, Rose and Sherlock all running their Ids through the reader.  Sherlock took a mental note of the floor numbers, and Rose wrote something in her notebook.

 

“How far down do these lifts go?” John asked.

 

“Oh, quite a ways, Captain,” the corporal responded.

 

“And what is down there?”

 

“We have to keep the bins somewhere, sir.”

 

“And what kind of research are you doing here at Baskerville?”

 

“I'd have thought you'd know, this being an inspection,” the corporal said, with a questioning look at Rose, Mickey and Sherlock.

 

“Corporal, please answer any question put to you, there’s no need for cheek,” Rose said sharply.

 

They exited the lift together as the corporal explained about cures for the common cold and cancer research.

 

“But mostly weapons,” Rose stated.  John was surprised, her voice sounded slightly cold.  She was a soldier who disliked weaponry.  Rose didn't wait for the answer, she took the lead to the nearest item of interest before her.

 

The laboratories were full of the sounds and smells of confined animals; the walls, tables, cabinets, cages and floors were bright, sterile white.  Everything was severe and cold until Rose laughed suddenly.  The warm, bubbling sound seemed out of place in the stark place and the entire group turned to see what had caused the unusual noise.  Rose was standing in front of a cage with one of the laboratory monkeys in it.  The creature was pulling absurd faces at her as its kind was wont to do, and she was giggling merrily at it.

 

“Um... this way,” Corporal Lyons directed them, getting Rose's attention again.

 

“How many animals do you keep at this facility?” Rose asked.

 

“Hundreds.”

 

“What kinds?  I'm seeing monkeys here, and you'll have rats and mice, obviously.”

 

“There are also rabbits and birds, a few different reptiles.  Horses, dogs, I think there are cows and pigs in one of the labs.”

 

John and Sherlock watched Mickey put an arm around Rose's shoulder as she wrinkled her nose in disgust.  She did not comment or criticize, however, merely nodded and kept her displeasure internal.

 

A smiling man in a half-zipped clean suit met them halfway across the laboratory.

 

“Dr. Franklin, just giving the tour,” Corporal Lyons said, indicating the four Londoners.

 

“Ah,” the man said, jovially, “new faces.  Isn’t that lovely?  Just be sure they don’t keep you.  I only came to fix the tap!”

 

John attempted a laugh, Rose gave a weak smile, Mickey raised one eyebrow, and Sherlock watched the man shrewdly as the four of them walked away, noticing that the scientist watched them as well.

 

The next laboratory they went into was smaller, the lights less bright, and it was full of cages of rabbits.  Two scientists had one of the rabbits on the table and were examining it.

 

Corporal Lyons lead the group in. “Dr. Stapleton,” he indicated the woman.  “We’re having an inspection.”

 

“An inspection?” she asked, sounding shocked.

 

Rose was growing tired of this reaction to the concept of oversight.  “Yes, Doctor, an inspection.  Baskerville can’t hide in the shadows forever.  Tell me, Dr. Stapleton, what is it that your team does here?”

 

“I… um… we do genetic research.”

 

“Good, excellent, what kind?”

 

“Making rabbits luminescent?” Sherlock asked acerbically from the other side of the table.  He shut off the light and the rabbit in Dr. Stapleton’s hands glowed green like a child’s glow-in-the-dark toy.

 

John, standing next to Mickey, felt the younger man stiffen.

 

“Oh,” Rose cried, coolness leaving her voice, “but that’s wonderful, that is!  Is that Jellyfish genes, the one for bioluminescence, added to the rabbit’s DNA?  That’s downright brilliant!”

 

Sherlock turned on the lights and Rose found herself the subject of three incredulous stares.  The two Doctors and Sherlock were looking at her as though she had started speaking Greek.  Mickey, however, was standing to attention, looking nervous.

 

Rose rolled her eyes.  “Why are people always shocked when I know things?  Is it the hair?” she asked, pulling a strand forward to look at.  She then addressed Mickey, “see this, Mick?  I’ve heard about this.  This kind of gene manipulation is gonna open the doors to all sorts of huge advances.  Glow-in-the-dark rabbits are fairly interesting, but it’s mostly just a harmless sort of experiment to prove that it’s possible.  Once it becomes common knowledge that it is, there are loads of possibilities.”

 

“And,” Mickey said, gruffly, “is it… _safe_?”

 

John and Sherlock noticed the odd inflection he put on the last word.

 

“Well, I’m sure they’ve lost their share of rabbits, and the ethical implications will probably last through the next millennium, but yeah, Mick, it’s _safe_ , and completely brilliant _._ ”

 

Rose walked over to her partner and put his hand on his upper arm.  He visibly relaxed and looked down at her with a smile.

 

“Is this why Bluebell had to die, Dr. Stapleton?” Sherlock said sharply.

 

“Have you been talking to my daughter?” the woman responded coolly.

 

Rose and Mickey turned to watch the exchange.  John was standing close to them, and heard Mickey say, quietly to Rose, “you remind me of him so much sometimes.  Going on about this sort of thing being brilliant like that.”

 

John glanced over and caught the slightly sad smile on Rose’s face, before she got control of herself.

 

Sherlock seemed to have finished bullying the scientist, who looked upset.

 

“We’re done here,” Sherlock bit off and took off at a brisk pace out the laboratory door and towards the lift.

 

John, Mickey, Rose and the Corporal looked at each other in surprise.

 

“Ehm, yes, Mr. Holmes is quite busy,” Rose said, prevaricating quickly.  “This is probably enough to be getting on with.  Major Smith and myself will be back tomorrow evening.  We’ve time scheduled with the Major to have access to the building after hours.  I assume you’ve a dossier for us to go over all of the major experiments in the meantime?”

 

The Corporal looked a bit shocked, but rallied quickly.  “Yes, of course, ma’am,” he said, straightening his spine. “The Major will have it.”

 

“Wonderful, we’ll go find him and be on our way then,” Rose said, taking the Corporal’s arm and leading him, Mickey and John out of the laboratory after Sherlock who was waiting for them at the lift.

 

When they got back to the main hallway, Major Barrymore was waiting.  Sherlock impatiently tried to push past him, but the Major stopped him.

 

“I’ve been given intelligence that you are not Mycroft Holmes,” the Major barked at Sherlock, and then looked at Rose. “What is the meaning of this?”

 

Rose’s back straightened almost imperceptibly, but when she spoke, it was with all the authority of her rank behind her words. “Major Barrymore, I vouched for this man.  If your computers have shown an error that is your issue to discover, but I will not have my colleague shouted at, and I will not be spoken to in such a manner.”

 

The Major looked cowed, and all four Londoners breathed silent sighs of relief.  Then the scientist from the first laboratory emerged from the lift.

 

“Oh, you haven’t left, wonderful.  You know, I usually never forget a face, but who’d have expected you here, Mr. Holmes!”

 

The four Londoners again tensed, fearful that their cover was about to be blown.  Again.

 

“Yes, Mycroft Holmes!  We met at that conference in… Belgium, was it?”

 

Sherlock hesitated a moment. “Vienna,” he said then.

 

“Oh yes, Vienna.  It’s lovely to see you again.  Let me walk you out.”  The man took Sherlock’s arm and lead him away, John trailing.

Rose looked to the Major. “The documents I requested?” she asked, holding out a hand.

 

The Major looked startled, but went into his office and took a thick manila folder off his desk and gave it to her.

 

“And tomorrow evening?” Rose continued, accepting the envelope and handing it to her partner.

 

“I don’t like giving the run of the facility to-“

 

“You have made your feelings about giving Torchwood access to this facility crystal clear, Major,” Rose stated, coldly, “but it does not change your orders.  Your displeasure is noted, and if you would like to make your statements formal, you are more than welcome, but in the meantime, are we scheduled for tomorrow evening?”

 

“Yes, _sir_ ,” the Major grated out.

 

“Delightful.  Then we will show ourselves out.”

 

Mickey and Rose made it to Sherlock and John as Dr. Franklin was offering them his cell phone number.  As they arrived, Franklin smiled toothily at Rose.

 

“Heard them say downstairs that there was a security breach.  Thought I’d come help if I could, get you all out of trouble.”

 

“Actually,” Sherlock said, a bit coldly, “Ms. Tyler had vouched for my identity and we had no need of your help.”

 

“Ah.” The scientist smiled a bit patronizingly at Rose then. “Well, you never know when a story needs a bit more authority.”

 

Rose, standing next to Mickey, felt him stiffen, and put her hand on his arm to keep him from saying anything to the condescending old bastard.  She loved that Mickey still loved her enough to want to defend her, even when she was capable of defending herself.

 

Rose stepped forward, extending her hand. “I'm sure you're right.” Her accent had gone back to the bubbly, foolish one of the previous evening when she was trying to seem non-threatening. “I don't think we were introduced, I'm Rose Tyler.”

 

“Ah, yes,” Franklin said with another patronizing smile that made all three men around Rose go on the defensive. “Pete Tyler's girl, right?”

 

“Do you know Daddy?”  Rose never called her stepfather 'daddy,' it was always 'dad,' or 'Pete.'

 

“No, not personally, but I've a great respect for entrepreneurs.  Did he help you get your job?”

 

“Yes, I suppose he did,” Rose said with a vapid smile that did not meet her eyes, which had grown colder with every word.

 

“How nice of him to help you.  Well, gentlemen,” this was directed at all of the men, but mostly Sherlock and John, “if you need anything further with your case, feel free to call me.  I'll see if I can pull some strings to get you back into the facility.”

 

Though he had clearly not intended the invitation for her, Rose responded, “you're so kind, thank you.  There's no telling how we'd have managed to get in again without you.”

 

“Well,” the scientist said, comfortably. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

 

“Yes,” Sherlock piped up, shaking off his irritation with the man in his search for more information. “Dr. Stapleton, what can you tell me about her?”

 

“I never speak ill of a colleague.”

 

“But you would speak well of one,” Sherlock commented, “which you are notably failing to do.”

 

“I do seem to be, don't I?”  Franklin glanced behind himself and caught sight of Major Barrymore.  “I've got to go.  I'll be in touch, gentlemen, Ms. Tyler.”  And he was gone.

 

“Arsehole,” Rose muttered quietly, and Mickey laughed, breaking most of the tension.

 

“Sherlock.” John turned to the other man. “Why did we go there?  What did we learn?”

 

Sherlock didn't answer, just adjusted his coat and set off in the direction of his and John's vehicle.

 

Rose grinned, watching him.  “Oh, I like that, with the collar and the lapels and the cheekbones... very cool and mysterious.  Nice effect, Sherlock.  Good way to avoid answering a direct question.”

 

Sherlock turned back to her with a frown, “I don't do that,” he said, surprised.

 

“Yes you do,” John said baldly.

 

Rose and Mickey laughed their way back to their own Land Rover. 

 

The ride out of the Baskerville facility was quiet as Rose flicked through some of the paperwork Barrymore had given her while Mickey drove.

 

Once they had made it into the countryside on their way back to the village, Rose spoke suddenly, “when did you start watching documentaries about Devon?”

 

Mickey laughed at the odd comment.  “Martha likes documentaries.  Shakespeare too.  She’s making me downright cultured.  We went and saw Richard II a couple weeks back.”

 

“Really?” Rose asked, interested. “She’s good for you, Martha is.  How was the play?”

 

“Brilliant, actually, you should see it.  The bloke playing the king looks just exactly like an older version of the Doctor- the second one- but with long hair.”

 

“Yeah?” Rose asked, with a laugh in her voice. “How long are we talking?”

 

“Most of the way down his back,” Mickey said with a chuckle.

 

“You’re right, I should see it.  The Doctor would have hated that.  He loved his hair.”

 

Tension abated, Mickey asked Rose a question that she could tell had been bothering him. “So genetic engineering?  I know you said it isn’t alien, but that glowing rabbit sure looked alien.”

 

“Nah.  Totally human, and right on time, actually.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“You remember Jack?” she said, knowing that he did.

 

“Captain of the Innuendo squad.  Good bloke.”

 

“Yeah,” she said, slightly wistfully. “Well, by his time, human children are almost completely genetically engineered.  Jack, when we knew him, probably had three or four times the expected lifespan that we do.  He was over 60.  His parents chose his hair and eye color, and they could have chosen exactly how he’d look, but they apparently didn’t mind letting genetics roll the dice a bit on him.  It’s completely common for humans in the 51st century, but the 21st is when it all starts.”

 

“And it starts with glowing rabbits?”

 

“Actually, yeah.  The Doctor told me that part.  Apparently, because they’re pretty simple, jellyfish genes are the easiest to splice into other animals, and the bioluminescent one just happens to be pretty benign in other animals, and it’s a pretty neat effect to show at conferences and things.  So there are glowing rabbits.  No phosphorous paint this time around,” she said with a grin.

 

“Okay.” Mickey nodded, reassuring himself as much as anything.  “Jack’s parents got really lucky playing the genetic lottery, didn’t they?”

 

“Oh yes,” Rose said, and she sounded so like the Doctor that they both fell into giggles.

 

They laughed the entire way back to the inn.


	8. Doubt

The remainder of the afternoon found Sherlock and John missing and Rose and Mickey sprawled out around her hotel room with the information from Torchwood. Each had a computer open and papers spread in front of them checking data against the official records, looking for discrepancies. It was dull work and Mickey jumped at the chance when Rose admitted that she was sick of it and wanted to eat.

Over dinner and a pint, the two of them agreed that the official record from Baskerville appeared clean- though they had expected no less. This piece of business concluded, they returned to their new favorite topic- Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Mickey said, “what was all that business in the car yesterday about a pocket watch?”

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that. So you know that the Doctor fought in a war, yeah? He mentioned it the first time we met him under the London Eye, and then with those Daleks at Canary Wharf.”

“Yeah, something about how he couldn’t save them.”

“Exactly. So I eventually got him to talk about it. Well, a bit. Not much. I got more of it from Jack, honestly, but it was called the Time War, the Last Great Time War. Sounds impressive, yeah?”

“Go on.”

“Right, so he explained to me that the weapons that were used in the Time War wasn’t just guns and bombs and that kind of thing, but Time itself was used as a weapon. It was so massive that reality itself was coming apart at the seams. See, you can change time a bit here and there, and changes that seem huge to you and me are actually quite tiny in the grand scheme of the universe, but the kind of changes being made, and the speed at which they were being made during the war started to shred reality itself.”

“Sounds pretty horrible. So what happened? Seemed to me like the Doctor ended it all.”

“Yeah, he did. He used something called a ‘time lock,’ which means that the whole thing never happened. The damage to the universe never happened, but it also meant that his planet and the Daleks and everyone involved in the war never existed either. It’s kind of weird- the Doctor and the TARDIS were a pair of living paradoxes, two creatures from a planet that had never existed.”

“What does that have to do with a fob watch?”

“I’m getting there. So the Time Lords are basically fiction, legend. As far as Jack was concerned, they were fairy tales, or the stories of Greek gods. When the Doctor told him that he was a Time Lord, Jack asked if he was going to claim to be Zeus next. The Doctor did his angry ‘Oncoming Storm’ thing and didn’t speak to Jack for about a week. I finally got them to apologize to each other and managed to convince Jack that the Doctor was telling the truth. So, anyway, Jack told me all sorts of stories about the Time Lords. They were fairy tales, really, and one of them was that a Time Lord could make himself human- one heart, higher body temperature and everything, right? But he would put all of his… Time Lord-ness into a pocket watch that he couldn’t open. If he did open it, he’d become a Time Lord again. Like I say, it was a fairy tale. Sounds like magic to me.”

“And a phone box that’s bigger on the inside and travels through time and space with a mad, 1000-year-old alien navvy as a pilot don’t sound a bit like magic.”

Rose laughed, cheerfully and had a cheeky retort on the tip of her tongue when the front door of the inn flew open and Sherlock swept in. He seemed to carry an air of stress, fear, and anger with him.

Rose turned to Mickey. “I’m done here, do you mind settling up? I’m going to see what’s wrong with him, see if I can help.”

“Rose,” Mickey said, warningly, “you said yourself that we can’t change this story.”

“He’s a friend, Mick, and I’m not going to let him be upset if I can help it. The universe can go without the story of Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of Baskerville being just exactly the same. I’m in my own time so I can’t cause a paradox.”

Mickey nodded and let her go knowing nothing he could say would change her mind anyway.

Rose observed Sherlock for a moment, seeing the way he sat in the lounge, ignoring everything around him, staring into the fire as though trying to read the runes made by the flickering flames. She made a decision, went to the bar and ordered a bottle of brandy and three glasses. She brought them to the table in the lounge, poured the amber liquid into two of the glasses and put one into Sherlock’s hand forcibly.

“It’ll warm you up a bit, it’s cold out tonight.”

“I’m not cold,” Sherlock said. Rose could tell that the statement was entirely a pro-forma response to coddling rather than an actual objection to having the drink, particularly as his hand held the glass in an unsteady grip and it was brought immediately to his lips.

Rose sat holding her own drink, watching the fire, and waiting. She had a feeling that Sherlock would either talk or not, and nothing she could do would change it.

“We took Henry Knight out to Dewer’s Hollow where he saw his father killed and where he has since seen the hound again to see if there was anything out there.”

“In the dark?”

“Of course in the dark,” Sherlock bit off, “he’s only ever seen it in the dark.”

“You took a man whose mental state is fragile out to the location of his greatest childhood trauma in the dark and cold and… what did you anticipate happening?”

“I anticipated him hallucinating the creature that he thought he saw before so that I could prove that it was a hallucination, as I anticipated.”

“I see. And did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Hallucinate his monster?”

Sherlock was silent for several minutes. “I was with Henry in the hollow when he started to panic. I saw something as well. A huge hound with glowing red eyes. Like a monster.”

“So… does that mean that there _is_ a genetic experiment loose on the moor?”

Again, Sherlock sat silent for several long moments before saying in a very quiet voice full of doubt that Rose would never have expected to hear there, “I don’t know.”

Rose remained silent after that, watching the flames and keeping an eye on the quantity of liquor that Sherlock consumed out of the corner of her eye. He was taking it slowly however, and was only on his second glass when John found them.

Rose poured John a brandy as well and he took it and sat to watch the fire, like Sherlock. “Well, Henry is in a really bad way,” John said quietly. “He's manic. Totally convinced that there's some sort of mutant super dog roaming the moor. And there isn't, is there? 'Cause if people knew how to make a mutant super dog, we'd know. They'd be for sale, I mean, that's how it works.” John looked at Sherlock who did not respond, then at Rose who only had eyes for his roommate. John continued, “listen, out on the moor I saw someone signaling Morse... I guess it's Morse. Doesn't seem to make much sense. U-M-Q-R-A, does that mean anything?” John looked at Sherlock, expecting an answer that he still did not give. “So, okay. What have we got? We know there's footprints 'cause Henry found them. So did the tour guide. We all heard something,” John continued, beginning to look concerned as Sherlock continued to fail to respond. “Maybe we should just look for whoever's got a big dog.”

“Henry's right,” Sherlock said, softly.

“What?” John asked.

“I saw it too,” Sherlock grated out.

“What?” John asked, in disbelief this time.

“I saw it too, John.” Sherlock's voice shook as he confessed.

“Just,” John began, glancing at Rose who was continuing to watch Sherlock in silence, “just a minute. You saw what?”

“A hound. Out there in the hollow. A gigantic hound.”

Rose watched this exchange and saw how much worse Sherlock was becoming in the face of John's rationality and disbelief. She reached over to where Sherlock's hand sat on the arm of his chair and brushed her warm fingers over his cool ones. He jerked his hand away, looking over at her in shock and surprise, but Rose did not pull away. She stroked the back of his hand again, and continued to do so until he relaxed the digit and allowed her to take it into hers.

“Look, Sherlock,” John continued, as though he were trying to inject some reason into the conversation, “we have to be rational about this, okay? Now you, of all people can't just...”

Rose felt Sherlock's hand tense again in hers, and brought the other up to rub at it.

John continued, “let's just stick with what we know, yes? Stick to the facts.”

“Once you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth,” Sherlock murmured.

Rose gasped. Even she knew the line, knowing as little of Sherlock Holmes' story as she did. Sherlock glanced at her, but she kept her face as neutral as possible.

“What does that mean?” John asked.

“Look at me,” Sherlock said, holding out his glass to see it tremble slightly in the hand not held fast in Rose's. “I'm afraid, John. Afraid.” He took a sip of his drink and let out a sardonic laugh.

“Sherlock...” John began.

“Always been able to keep myself distant,” Sherlock continued, ignoring both the woman holding his hand, stroking it soothingly, and the man who watched him as though uncertain who he was, “divorce myself from feelings.”

The way he spoke the last word made Rose's hand tense. She released him, set his hand back on the arm of his chair, and leaned away. Sherlock did not appear to notice.

“But you see,” Sherlock continued, holding up his still trembling glass, “body's betraying me. Interesting, yes? Emotions. Grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment.”

“Yeah, all right, Spock. Just take it easy,” John interrupted. “You've been pretty wired lately, you know you have. I think you've just gone out there and got yourself a bit worked up.”

“Worked up?” Sherlock asked, disdainfully.

“It was dark and scary,” John said, and though he was trying to be sympathetic, Sherlock did not want sympathy. Rose could see him getting more and more irritated and stressed the longer John talked.

“Me? There's nothing wrong with me,” Sherlock said, disdainfully.

“So there must be something wrong with the universe,” Rose murmured, too quiet for the men to hear.

“Sherlock,” John said, trying to sound sympathetic. 

Again, Rose watched the attempt at sympathy raise Sherlock's hackles until he broke.

“There is _nothing_ wrong with me, do you understand that?” Sherlock suddenly roared at John. He proceeded to prove that his powers of observation and deduction were up to their usual standard by describing the specific personal situation of an elderly lady and somewhat younger man in John’s sightline. His face and voice twisted with disdain, disgust, and anger as he fired off his observations at breakneck speed until his final shot of, “so you see, I am fine. In fact, never been better, so just _leave me alone_.”

Rose watched Sherlock grow more tense and John grow more angry. She knew that there was a blow-up in the works, but could think of nothing to do to stop it.

“Yeah, okay,” John said, his voice cool and angry. “Why would you listen to me? I'm just your friend.”

“I don’t have friends,” Sherlock said coldly.

Both John and Rose sat back at that. Rose had been trying to keep the disappointment and humiliation at bay since Sherlock had begun talking about his thoughts on emotions. He would be unwilling to entangle himself with anyone because he considered it a weakness or flaw in the instrument of his mind. He would not allow himself to become so flawed. She was shocked at the level of disappointment she felt, considering she had known the man little more than 24 hours and she had expected this response from him, but disappointed she was. John, however, looked devastated and angry.

John stood and said, quietly, “no, I wonder why,” and walked away, out the front door of the inn.

Rose followed John without another word to Sherlock. She jogged a bit to catch up with him on the sidewalk, and put her hand on his arm to announce her presence, not really knowing what to say.

She sighed. “You don’t have to stop being angry with him, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean that. Not really. Lashing out in anger and all that, you know?”

John sighed as well. “You’re probably right, but it’s still… he’s so… I just…”

Rose smiled. “No, you’re right. You don’t have to forgive him, not until he at least acknowledges it, but just know that you are his friend.”

John glanced over at her. “I think you are too, Rose.”

“He doesn’t know me. Less than 24 hours, you know?”

“I think you should consider yourself his friend. I have a feeling that friendship with you makes people better, and Sherlock could use that.”

“That,” Rose said, sounding surprised, “is one of the nicest things that anyone has ever said to me.” With that, she slid her hand through the crook of his arm and rested her head on his shoulder for a few steps, allowing them both the comfort of easy, friendly intimacy.

“So,” Rose said after a few moments, lifting her head from John’s shoulder, “where are you going? Just walking off the mad, or are you going somewhere specific?”

“It started as the first, mostly, but now I have an idea. I told Sherlock about seeing that Morse Code signal?”

“Yeah. What did it say, again?”

John dug in his pocket and pulled out his notebook to show her the letters he’d written down.

“U-M-Q-R-A, umqra,” Rose attempted to pronounce. “What does that mean?”

“No idea,” John said, “but I know where they were signaling from, and thought I’d check it out.”

“Interested in a sidekick?” Rose asked, “I look great in red and green spandex.”

“You’d make a better Supergirl than Robin.”

“Female sidekick to a nearly all-powerful alien who looks human and hides on Earth pretending to be normal? Nah, can’t see it,” Rose said taking John’s hand as they continued walking.


	9. Friendship

Rose was sitting on the ground giggling helplessly into her hands. John let out a heavy sigh and sat beside her, bumping her shoulder with his.

“Sorry,” Rose choked out finally. “’Sjust a metaphor for life, ya know? You finally think you’ve figured something out, think you’ve finally got something right and it turns out to be people shagging in the car.”

“Metaphorically speaking,” John said, finally starting to smile.

“Exactly,” Rose said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Metaphorical vehicular shagging.”

They both burst into laughter then.

Once they calmed down again, Rose leaned her head on John’s shoulder. “Shagging in a car, the bloke I fancy don’t know I exist, hanging out with Mickey, I feel like a teenager again,” she said in an offhand way.

John glanced at her, he had suspected, but it was hard to believe that someone as warm and friendly as Rose Tyler might find something to fancy in his friend. “Sherlock?” he verified.

“Very astute, Dr. Watson,” she responded in a passable imitation of Sherlock, though marred by her cheeky smile.

“Why?”

“Well, he’s a bit all right, isn’t he?”

“So… you fancy him because he’s good-looking? Seems more like Rose Tyler, Vitex Heiress than the Rose Tyler I went on a date with last night.”

“Yeah. Shoulda’ known better than to try and get a flip answer past Sherlock Holmes’ right hand,” Rose agreed with a sigh. “He reminds me of someone I… knew once.”

“Someone you loved.” It was not a question.

“Love,” she corrected, quietly, “to this very day and moment. But he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry.” John thought of the pictures on the phone of the tall, thin man with the wide smile and warm brown eyes.

“Been five years,” she said, her voice low. “I haven’t had anyone since. Not a single date that could be called as much. The tabloids catch pictures of me with blokes, but they’re always from work.” She let out a slightly bitter laugh. “Your friend said that I’d devoted my entire life since Him to my career, and he’s right. Not a single date. Not a single kiss. But I’m okay. I’m happy without. I love my job, I’ve got a great family, a group of friends that care about me. Who needs a bloke when you’ve got all that, right?” Rose sighed again. “Then, after I’ve come to terms with being alone and gotten really good at it, I meet some bloke whose friend picks me up on the side of the road when my car breaks down, and calls me Rose Tyler in a way I haven’t heard in years, and for the first time in five years, I’ve got butterflies in my tummy when someone looks at me. If I’d ever bothered getting a therapist, I’m sure they’d say I was healing, finally. Thing is that your Mr. Holmes reminds me of the man from my past, but not the good points. They’re both geniuses, both condescending, both refuse to acknowledge the human need for emotion and intimacy, and both are absolutely brilliant at hurting people… me. He used to look through me sometimes, like I wasn’t there, like I was less than him and unworthy of his notice. I think Sherlock might do that too.” Rose looked up, suddenly, and said, “I’m sorry, I haven’t talked to anyone but Mickey about all that. You don’t need me unloading on you, you barely know me.”

John shook his head. “What did you do when the other one looked through you? You don’t seem like the sort to just let it slide.”

Rose shook her head. “Sometimes I did. I got good at reading him, knowing what he needed most- whether it was a silent hand to hold, or someone to pull his head out of his arse.”

“That’s _exactly_ what Sherlock needs.” 

“It probably is, but I’m not sure if being that person again is what _I_ need. And I need to figure that out before anything else. I could hurt Sherlock almost as easily as he could hurt me. It’s good though, thinking about blokes. It’s healthy, yeah?”

John thought, suddenly, of the scene they had just left in the inn. “Oh god,” he said, quietly, “that's what you were doing there with him. Just sitting and being quiet. You could tell that was what he needed, and I completely bolloxed everything up being rational and making him try to figure things out when he was out of his mind.” He turned to her, putting an arm around her then. “I'm sorry. I should have left it alone.”

“Ta,” Rose said when suddenly John’s phone went off.

He dug it out of his pocket and flipped it open to see the text message from Sherlock.

“Why doesn’t he interrogate the psychiatrist himself?”

“Asking,” John said, as he typed up a response text.

The answer came back in the form of a picture message of a young, fit woman with a pretty smile.

“You know,” Rose said, speculatively, “as a friend he’s pretty rubbish most of the time, and I’ll bet as a boyfriend he’d be even worse, but he’s not bad as a wingman. She’s a bit all right.”

“He’s rubbish as a wingman too when he’s present.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me at all.” She rose and grabbed his hand to pull him to his feet saying, “come on, it’s time for you to go on the pull!”

~?~?~?~?~

Rose sat at the bar in the inn’s restaurant sipping a glass of wine and keeping an eye on John and his date with the psychiatrist. She’d sent Mickey a text letting him know where she was, and he arrived shortly, slid into the seat next to her, ordered a beer, and glanced over his shoulder at John and his date.

“She’s good-looking, who is she?”

“Their client’s psychiatrist.”

“That’s two dates in two nights with two pretty ladies that were actually interrogations. Suppose he ever goes on actual dates?”

“Probably, he’s quite charming.”

“Just not your type?”

“No. My type informed me this evening that emotions are the grit on the lens of the instrument of the mind.”

“Classy.”

“Oh yeah. It really doesn’t matter though. If I keep telling myself that, I might start to believe it.”

Mickey reached over and rubbed a hand up and down her back. “'Sbeen a long time for you, Rose,” Mickey said softly. “You haven't felt for anyone since Norway, so if it's starting again, everything's likely to be way bigger and more intense than you remember it, just because you _don't_ actually remember it.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, quietly, “the good things and the bad things.”

Mickey put his arm across her shoulder and pulled her head down to his shoulder for a brief hug.

Rose glanced at John and his date again and noticed that there was another person at the table. Dr. Franklin had insinuated himself into John’s date. Dr. Franklin who had been such a big fan of Sherlock’s adventures.

“Bollocks,” Rose murmured, rising to try to deal with the situation before it blossomed out of control, but at that moment John’s date got up and stalked out of the inn. Dr. Franklin left, and John sat back in his chair looking put-out.

Rose and Mickey walked over to his table. Rose took the seat that the psychiatrist had just left, and Mickey pulled a chair over from a nearby table.

“What happened?” Rose asked, though she could guess.

“Oh he just wandered over into my date and started talking about how Sherlock Holmes is investigating Henry Knight and I’m his assistant.”

Rose and Mickey both winced.

“Sorry, mate,” Mickey said, sympathetically.

“Even if she didn’t have anything to add to the investigation, it looked like you two were having fun,” Rose said, sympathetically.

“We were, that’s the worst part.”

All three of them sighed heavily.

“Well,” Rose said, rallying, “the positive side of this terrible date is that you still have half a bottle of wine to finish, and that’s the best way to deal with a bad date. You planning on keeping it to yourself?”

John grinned, and the three set to enjoying the wine together.

~?~?~?~?~

When Rose had been nineteen, she had been resolutely ‘not a morning person.’ It had driven the Doctor quite mad- he didn’t need much sleep and couldn’t really understand why she needed as much as she did. In the five years in this parallel world, however, she found that waking up early gave her a few hours of quiet before the madness of her job.

At 5:30 the following morning, Rose was to be found in the lounge before the fire again. She had _Great Expectations_ open on her lap, but she was looking into the fire rather than reading, allowing her mind to wander. Her reverie was broken by a long-fingered hand inserting itself into her vision, wrapped around a cup of tea.

Rose glanced up at Sherlock as he stood, offering her a cuppa. “May I help you, Mr. Holmes?”

“Cup of tea?”

She reached forward and took it. “Thank you.”

“I’m… afraid that I owe you an apology,” Sherlock said, hesitantly. “Again.”

The eyes that met his were confused. “No you don’t,” she said, quite honestly.

“No?”

“No.”

“So you’re not upset with me?”

“I am, a bit.”

“But I don’t owe you an apology.”

“Nope,” she said, a smile starting at the edges of her mouth then.

“I… see.”

“No you don’t,” her smile continued to grow.

“You’re right, I don’t.” Sherlock frowned, as though searching for an answer, and the frustrated puzzlement on his face made Rose’s resentment melt away. He looked like her little brother Tony when he was reading and couldn’t make it through a word. The look was so endearing on those haughty features that she laughed outright. That caused Sherlock’s expression to clear of confusion and take on irritation.

“Sorry, not laughing at you, just thinking of someone.”

“Who? The person you lost?”

Rose raised her eyebrows at that. “No, actually, I was thinking of my younger brother.”

Sherlock frowned, surprised at the response.

“Do you know,” Rose said in a would-be casual voice, “that it's actually quite rude to find someone's emotional bruises and poke at them?”

“Rude?” he said, as though he'd never heard the word before.

“Yes, Sherlock Holmes, rude. You are very nearly the rudest person I've ever met.”

Sherlock continued to frown at her as though she were a puzzle to solve.

Rose sighed. “Mr. Holmes, I appreciate you bringing me a cup of tea and attempting to apologize. Now, unless there was something else you needed from me, I assume you have things you need to accomplish today that don't involve watching me read a book.”

“Ms. Tyler, you are a psychologist, correct?”

“No.”

“But you said yesterday morning that you studied psychology in university.”

“Yeah, and I have a doctorate in it, but a psychologist is someone who practices professionally. Me? I’m a Torchwood operative by day, and an heiress by night.”

“Do you remain versed in psychological methods?”

“Got in your head, didn’t I,” she asked, cheeky smile flirting with the corners of her mouth, then she sobered. “Yes, Mr. Holmes, I do read the journals when I have the time and keep up with new research. Why? You don’t strike me as the sort who would feel the need for a psychologist,” again, there was that cheeky smile that threatened to come out.

“I am visiting Henry Knight again this morning, and I would like a second person to observe him. John has already gone out for the morning, but I believe that if you came you would provide… insight.”

Rose raised a single eyebrow at the strange man before her, but put her book back into her pocket and rose to follow him without another word. She never turned down an adventure.

As they walked, side-by-side but never touching, Sherlock considered the woman at his side. He had acknowledged that his treatment of John the previous night was unkind- he knew that John was his friend, and he had belittled that fact to the other man. He would do his best to make amends to John and believed that his flatmate would forgive him in time (probably more quickly than Sherlock deserved). However, he had felt, somehow, he had said or done something wrong in regards to Ms. Tyler as well. He couldn’t put his finger on precisely what (and wasn’t that irritating?), but he felt sure that he’d made a mistake there. And then there was the fact that he thought of her at all. Most people that he met flitted about the edges of his perception: observed, catalogued, and dismissed. Rose Tyler, however, he seemed unable to dismiss. Perhaps it was the mystery of the woman herself- a foolish tabloid queen with a doctorate in psychology and a high-ranking military career. Perhaps it was the clever way that she had gotten into his head and caught his interest when he’d thought nothing could. Perhaps it was that she, like John, was impressed but not intimidated by his intellect. Perhaps it was the smile that she seemed to gift him with- the one that made him feel warm in a way that Sherlock couldn’t remember being warm in his adult life, the one that made his face wish to respond with a smile in kind. The previous night, as he had fallen asleep, he had come to a conclusion about why Henry and he had seen the hound but John had not, had congratulated himself on his brilliant deduction, and, in the final moments before sleep, as his mind relaxed fully, he had seen Rose Tyler’s smile just for an instant before unconsciousness took him. Then, this morning, seeing her sitting in the firelight, he had felt compelled to speak to her- to be in her company. As she had tried to dismiss him, he had found an excuse to keep her beside him. He could not quite fathom why, but he felt pleased every time he glanced left and saw a flash of blonde hair or blue leather.

They arrived at Henry Knight’s house, and Sherlock blew in as though he owned the place.

“Mr. Knight, this is Ms. Tyler. You look tired, you should have some coffee,” he spouted off, and breezed into the kitchen without invitation.

Rose watched him go, then turned to Henry Knight and offered him a smile. “Mr. Holmes is very rude, and I’m sorry,” she said, kindly, “but he is right, you do look like you’re having trouble sleeping. Something keeping you up?”

“We-well, my li-li-lights…” Henry trailed off, and Rose gave him an encouraging nod to go on. “I’ve got fl-fl-floodlights in the back yard, very bright,” he continued, “they’re on a m-motion sensor, and last night they k-kept going on every few minutes. I c-c-couldn’t sleep.”

Rose looked sympathetic, “I’m absolute rubbish with all that do-it-yourself stuff, but my mate, Mickey, he’s here in the village with me, and he’s brilliant with mechanics and things. We might be able to come back and take a look and see why your lights are on the fritz. Maybe tomorrow?”

Henry looked at her like she had offered him water in the desert, and she wondered how long it had been since he’d had a good night’s sleep. If it was too long, it might explain the mental state that caused him to hallucinate demon dogs, but not Sherlock.

Rose took Mr. Knight’s arm and steered him toward the kitchen saying, “how about we go check on Sherlock. You probably don’t need any coffee just now, but maybe a cup of herbal tea? And then, I think you should take an R&R day. Read a book or watch your favorite movie, but don’t do anything too stressful today. I think it’ll help.”

Sherlock was in the kitchen looking into a cabinet.

“Mr. Holmes, Mr. Knight doesn’t want coffee. Is there any herbal tea in there?”

Sherlock turned to her, abruptly shutting the cabinet. “No. Now, Mr. Knight, please tell me again what you saw last night.”

“I saw the hound, a-and so d-did you, I know you did!”

“Hound, why do you call it a hound, why a hound?”

“What?” The young man was completely perplexed by this change of subject.

“It’s odd, isn't it? Strange choice of words... Archaic. It's why I took the case: 'Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound,' why say hound?”

“I-I-I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. Ms. Tyler may be right, you shouldn’t have coffee. Take care,” and with that, Sherlock was off.

Rose smiled at Henry and bade him farewell saying, “you do what I said now, Mr. Knight. A nice relaxing day, all right? Just what the doctor ordered.”

She caught up with Sherlock at a jog outside of Henry Knight's front gate, falling into step with his long legs as easily as ever she had with the Doctor.

“Why did you go bother that poor man this morning?”

“He’ll be fine.”

“That’s not what I asked, and you know it. That poor man hasn’t slept in days and you were a right arse, swanning in there like you owned the place, going through his cabinets.”

Sherlock harrumphed and continued walking.

Rose shook her head and sighed. She noticed a familiar figure sitting in the churchyard and raised her voice in greeting. “John!”

He looked up and smiled at her, then, noticing her companion, raised an eyebrow at her. She shook her head, a move that did not go unnoticed by the man at her side.

Rose went into the churchyard to greet him, Sherlock a step behind her. She went to John and gave him a hug, noting the stiffness in his arms, even as he returned it. Pulling back she saw that John was eying Sherlock warily and, turning, she saw that Sherlock was equally uncomfortable.

“Did you get anywhere with that Morse Code?” Sherlock asked awkwardly

“No,” John said shortly, hopping down off the gravestone and starting back towards the inn.

“U-M-Q-R-A, wasn't it? Umqra,” Sherlock attempted to pronounce, as Rose had done the previous day.

Rose trailed the two men, staying in earshot, but out of sight.

“Nothing,” John said, shortly. “Look, forget it, I thought I was onto something, but I wasn't. Just a metaphor.”

Rose tried to suppress her giggle, but was not entirely successful. Both men looked back at her, and she quieted and looked away, embarrassed.

Sherlock turned back to John. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“What about Louise Mortimer, did you get anywhere with her?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Did you get any information?”

Rose snickered again, trying to hide it in a fake sneeze, but both men looked at her again.

“What?” she asked wildly, “he's being funny!”

“I thought it might break the ice,” Sherlock said, a bit sheepishly.

“Funny doesn't suit you,” was John's cool reply, but Rose could see that he was warming, then he sighed, turned away, and started walking again.

Sherlock rushed to catch him up saying, “John!”

“It's fine,” was John's resigned reply.

“Listen, John, last night something happened to me, something I've not ever experienced before.”

“Yes, you said. Fear. Sherlock Holmes got scared.”

“No, no, no, it was more than that, John, it was doubt. I felt doubt. I've always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night.”

“You can't actually believe that you saw some kind of monster.”

“No, I can't believe it, but I did _see_ it, so the question is 'how'?”

“Yeah, right, good. So you've got something to go on then? Good luck with that.” And with that, John walked away.

As John walked away, Sherlock said, softly but clearly, “this is what I said before, John. I meant it. I don't have friends.” Rose winced until Sherlock continued, “I've just got one.”

John stood for a moment, looking at Sherlock. Then he nodded and said, “right.” He then turned on his heel and continued off.

Rose, standing a few metres away from Sherlock sighed heavily. She took off at a jog muttering something that Sherlock interpreted as “ _bloody men_ ” and ran to catch John up.

Once she reached him, Rose stopped John with a hand on his arm, turned him toward her and said, “you're being very stubborn, you know. He's trying really hard.”

John looked into her brown eyes, then glanced back at his friend, and sighed.

“John,” Sherlock said. Both Rose and John glanced over at him.

“John!” Sherlock shouted this time, and began running over to them crying, “you are amazing, you are fantastic!”

“Maybe trying a bit too hard,” Rose said quietly, smiling at John.

“Don't overdo it,” John said to Sherlock as he reached them.

“You have never been the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light you are unbeatable,” Sherlock said, grabbing John's face between his hands.

John frowned, trying to work out what Sherlock had said.

Rose got it a second faster and hit Sherlock on the arm saying, “rude!”

“Some people who aren't geniuses themselves have an amazing ability to stimulate it in others,” Sherlock said, as thought that would make it better.

John, finally getting it, said, “wait, weren't just apologizing a moment ago?”

“He's right,” Rose said, irritated, “don't spoil it.”

“Go on then, what have I done that's so bloody stimulating?” John sounded annoyed again.

Sherlock held out his notebook in which he had written the word 'hound.'

John and Rose looked at him as though to say _go on_.

“What if it isn't a word,” Sherlock said, as he wrote in the notebook again, “what if it is individual letters?”

“You think it's an acronym?” John asked, surprised.

“An acronym for what?” Rose asked.

“No idea,” Sherlock said, and took back off for the village.

John looked at Rose. “Was that actually an apology?”

Rose smiled after Sherlock, and started to follow saying, “more apology than you were expecting, right?”

John shrugged, but she was right, so he took off after her as well.


	10. Investigation

By the time they reached the village, Sherlock had fallen back to speak further with John and Rose was leading the way. She got to the entrance of the inn and saw Mickey standing in the bar with a handsome older man, chatting cheerfully.

Mickey saw her, and nodded over the man's shoulder to draw his attention to her. When the older man turned, Rose cried in delight, “DI Lestrade!” and ran to give him a hug.

“Ms. Tyler,” Lestrade said, with obvious pleasure, returning the embrace.

“What are you doing here,” came a biting voice from the vicinity of the door. Sherlock stood in the doorframe glaring at the inspector.

John inched in around Sherlock, nodded to Lestrade and said, “Greg,” which greeting was returned by the man who still had his hand in the small of Rose's back, as though to protect her from the scowling presence at the door.

Rose turned to the tall, dark-haired man, still looking daggers at the inspector and said, “you're being very rude again, Mr. Holmes.”

Lestrade glanced down at the small blonde woman in surprise. “You know Sherlock?” he asked, as though the fact caused him to think a bit less of her.

“She only met me the day before yesterday when John gave her and her partner a ride when their car broke down, but that doesn't explain what you are doing here, and why you are calling yourself 'Greg,” Sherlock said scathingly.

“That's his name, innit?” Mickey asked, confused.

Rose, John and the Inspector nodded.

“It is?” Sherlock asked, caught off guard.

Rose sighed in irritation and turned to Lestrade. “Let me translate from Holmes to human: 'hello, Detective Inspector, how lovely to see you, but it is a surprise to see you in Devon, what's brought you down here?'”

“Oh, I know what he's doing here. One call on my location and Mycroft sends my... _handler_ ,” Sherlock spat out.

“I am not your handler,” Lestrade said with a bite of irritation.

“And you,” Sherlock interrupted, turning to Rose, “you seem quite cozy with Lestrade, and you know Mycroft. Are you on his payroll as well? Just like him to send a psychologist to keep an eye on me.”

“Does your ego know no bounds?” Rose asked, smile twitching the corners of her mouth. “The world does not _actually_ revolve around you, are you aware? I met DI Lestrade when one of my mother's maids was caught stealing from her, and he's helped me run the paparazzi off from my apartment a time or two. You know,” and now her eyes flashed with an emotion Sherlock could not quite name, “ _ordinary_ things. Domestic things. The sort of thing that the great Sherlock Holmes doesn't get called in on.”

“He could be here on holiday, Sherlock,” John said quietly.

“He's just back from holiday,” Rose said.

“Well observed, Ms. Tyler,” Sherlock said with grudging admiration coloring his sarcasm. “Look at him, John, he's brown as a nut.”

“Actually,” Rose put up a finger to stop Sherlock, “not really the power of observation on this one. I found out the ordinary way: he told me a few weeks back that he had a holiday in Greece coming up.” She turned to the Inspector, “you look well, the tan looks nice on you.”

“Well,” Sherlock said, turning back to Lestrade, “you can just go back and tell my brother that I don't need you here.”

“Your brother doesn't tell me what to do. Who's to say I don't want another holiday?”

“Actually,” John jumped in before Sherlock could say something biting, “you may be just the man we need.”

Everyone turned to look at John who, after glancing around the taproom, jerked his head toward the door to indicate that they leave the building. John lead the way outside, then dug into his pocket and emerged with what appeared to be a receipt.

“I saw this when we got here, but decided it didn’t mean anything then, but now I’m not so sure.” John showed the receipt for several pounds of beef around to the assembled group. “I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of meat for a vegetarian restaurant. Maybe a scary detective from Scotland Yard could talk them into an explanation?”

Lestrade looked at Rose. “Am I scary?”

“Terrifying, Inspector,” she said with a grin that had her tongue tucked into the corner of it.

~?~?~?~?~

Sherlock stalked out of the inn several hours later in a poor mood. Lestrade was right that there wasn’t much of anything to charge the innkeepers with, particularly if the dog was already gone. In addition, it didn’t explain the monstrous creature he’d seen the previous night. He had been successful in giving John the sugar and the idea that the creature glowed (another thing that John would have to forgive him for, but Sherlock was not worried). Now he just needed to get back into Baskerville. There were two options- he could call Mycroft, or…

His second option was sitting at one of the umbrella-topped tables outside of the inn, working on a laptop. Her back was to him but she had a privacy filter on her screen so he’d have to get much closer to see what she was working on. Sherlock considered peeking, but she was a soldier, and he suspected that she knew he was there, though she had given no indication. He walked over and threw himself into the seat across from her.

“Please feel free to take a seat, Mr. Holmes,” Rose said, drily.

“They were keeping a dog that they let run loose on the moor,” he said, without preamble.

“Could that have been what you and Mr. Knight saw last night?” She did not even bother looking up from her computer screen to address him.

“They put it down.”

This finally caused her to look up, shock and pain in her gaze as she said, “that’s horrible! That poor dog.”

“They could not control it.”

“That’s no reason to put a dog down. If you can’t take care of it, you send it to a shelter.”

Sherlock shook off this illogical idea and began his next volley. “I’m going to have to call my brother.”

“Scheduling Sunday dinner?”

“I need to get back into Baskerville, and using his ID won’t work a second time.”

Rose’s eyes sparkled with mischief and a smile played at the corners of her mouth as she looked up from her computer screen again and met his eyes. “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are, Mr. Holmes.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sherlock said, haughtily, though he was surprised at her perception.

“You want me to get you back into the research facility, am I wrong?”

Sherlock’s sheepish look said all she needed.

“Didn’t Dr. Franklin offer to get you in if you needed?”

“Everyone who works in that place is a suspect, and I prefer knowing that I can get in than allowing an acquaintance to ‘pull strings.’”

“I don’t usually let men call me a ‘sure thing,’” she said, primly. It was clear that Sherlock had no idea about what she was speaking, so she continued, “what, exactly, do you need from Baskerville?”

“I need access to the labs, and possibly the computers.”

“Mickey and I have an inspection there tonight after hours. Some of the lead scientists may still be there, but no one else. At least one lab will be free, I would suspect, though I can guarantee nothing.

Sherlock nodded, and without another word rose from the table and took off toward the inn again.

“You’re welcome,” she called toward him, attention back on her computer. Sherlock hesitated for a moment, glanced back at her, and then entered the taproom of the inn.

~?~?~?~?~

That evening, Rose and Mickey allowed Sherlock and John to pile into their Land Rover and ride out to Baskerville Facility with them. Rose, Mickey and John chatted amiably about something ordinary. Sherlock gave the conversation little enough notice once he discovered it was about childhood pets or some such. His mind was occupied with the blonde woman who was driving and explaining that her mother didn’t like animals much, so she’d never had a pet.

He had tried shocking her with his brilliance, but she had not been shocked. He had tried cutting her with his coldness, but she had not bled. He had tried ignoring her with his indifference, but she would not be ignored. He had tried playing chess with her, but she had upended the pieces on the floor and forced him into honesty. He could not figure Rose Tyler out, and his usual methods were proving completely ineffective. She seemed to be insinuated into his life in half a dozen tiny ways already: she had befriended John, she flirted with Lestrade, she knew his brother and seemed to know more about Mycroft’s true position than most, she was proving a key ally in this case, she seemed to know John’s stories well and believed them, but still wasn’t in awe of them. In addition, she treated him like he was… ordinary… human. Most people who met him seemed to expect his brusqueness, dismissal and coldness, but Rose Tyler had demanded an apology for his casual hurt and, wonder of wonders, he had given it. She had called him out on his rudeness, and he had felt guilty. She had expected a thank you, and he had nearly thanked her. Even John just sighed and moved on when he did that, but Rose Tyler, a woman who should not have had the strength of character to stand up to him, expected him to be better.

Rose’s voice pulled Sherlock from his reverie as she said, “Brigadier Tyler, Major Smith, Captain Watson, and Mr. Mycroft Holmes. We are expected.”

Identifications were scanned and the group was waved into the facility grounds. Major Barrymore met them at the entrance, scowling at Rose in particular.

“I would like to make the statement that I am turning the facility over to you under duress,” he said without preamble.

“Noted,” Rose said, coolly, “and if you would like to make an official statement of your objections, please feel free.”

“I will, Brigadier.”

“Won't make a bit of difference,” Mickey muttered, but low enough that the Major could not hear.

“Well, Major, we've work to do and I'm sure that you would like to get home for your tea. Pip Pip!” Rose said with cheerful irreverence.

The Major glared as he gave her a painfully exact salute. Rose rolled her eyes and returned it, equally perfectly, but with a grin on her face that told him that she knew what he was doing, and wouldn't let him faze her. Then the Major left.

“Is there something in the water at this facility that turns out arseholes?” she asked Mickey cheerfully as they lead Sherlock and John into the facility. She turned to the two detectives with a map in hand and explained as she pointed at the map. “All right, Mickey and I are going to be in any of these three labs on the -5th floor. You two can have a look around, but would you mind waiting for one of us before doing the computer file check?”

“Yeah,” John agreed readily, but Sherlock frowned.

“I don't see how you could help...” Sherlock began.

“I'm sure you don't,” Rose said, slightly coolly, “but what you discover could make a difference to the decisions I make about this place for Torchwood. I'm asking for my own benefit, not yours. Please just do me this favor, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock looked into eyes that, in the low light, were as deep and dark as the night sky and found that his stomach turned over, his heart seemed to skip a beat, and he could deny her nothing.

“Yes, all right,” he said, irritably. He didn't actually feel all that irritable, but he had to hide just how unsettled he was feeling about this woman. “How will we get in touch with you once we have finished looking at the laboratories?”

Rose rolled her eyes and stepped into his space. Sherlock felt his breath hitch as she did so, and then she reached into his coat pocket. He stopped breathing entirely. He stopped moving. He stopped thinking. What was she doing? She pulled out his phone and stepped away with it and it seemed that Sherlock's entire mental and physical prowess came crashing back in an instant, leaving him reeling. When he had finally sorted himself out, she was typing into his mobile. Of course, giving him her number to reach her if necessary in this place. Sherlock tried to shake off the effects of her closeness, and was disturbed at how difficult it was proving.

Rose finished typing her number and Mickey's into Sherlock's contacts and returned his phone to him with a smile. She had not missed the way he had tensed when she had touched him- another trait of the Doctor's: when the Doctor initiated contact, he was wildly tactile, but if she did it, he tended to spook, particularly the version who wore leather. Rose gave no outward indication that her stomach felt like lead again, but turned to John who already had his mobile out to hand to her. She typed the numbers into his phone quickly and handed it back.

“Fantastic,” she said with a smile, “interconnection through mobile communication technology achieved. Everyone ready to storm the castle?”

“What if _you_ need _us_?” John asked.  
Rose grinned at him. “We won't,” she said, and took Mickey's hand without another word to skip off down the corridor towards the lifts.

~?~?~?~?~

“No, this is human,” Rose was saying to Mickey as they examined some of Dr. Franklin's work, “and it's completely brilliant, but the ethics are really really grey. I don't think he's _officially_ done anything wrong here, but he's pushing the boundaries pretty hard.”

They had been examining the experiments that were of most concern to them: the ones that might be alien tech (there weren't any, much to Mickey's disappointment) and those that had difficult ethical implications. They had found that most were well within expected bounds of ethics for this type of experimental research. Rose had left Dr. Franklin's research to the last, knowing that her dislike of the man himself would not endear his findings to her. However, she was pretty sure that her disgust with his methods had little to do with his patronizing behavior towards her the previous day.

“Look at how many times he's applied for human test subjects since this one started,” she said, turning the computer's monitor towards Mickey. “He keeps getting turned down because it's _way_ too early in the experiment for human subjects, but he keeps trying.”

Rose's phone vibrated on the desk and she picked it up and answered absentmindedly, while still looking at the computer screen. “Tyler.”

“Rose, it's John,” his voice was breathy and quiet as though he had been running and was now hiding. Rose thought she heard growls over the phone, but couldn't swear to it.

“What's wrong, John?”

“The hound. The monster that Sherlock and Harry saw. It's here. It's coming for me.”

“Where is Sherlock?”

“He was here with me. I could swear he was.”

“Call him, John, make sure he's okay. Mickey and I are on our way. You're in the main lab, right?”

“Please come.”

Rose ended the call abruptly and turned to Mickey. “John and Sherlock are in the main lab and there's something in there. John says it's the same thing that Sherlock and Henry Knight saw out on the moor last night. We need to go help them.”

Mickey nodded, moving from investigator to soldier mode smoothly and pulling his revolver from his holster. Rose unholstered her own but left the safety on. She hated the thing- noisy, destructive and lethal- but understood the practicality of the situation.

The Torchwood operatives took the stairs- the lift may have been faster, but the stairs were silent and they wanted to apprise the situation before making themselves targets. They came through the staircase doors just outside of one of the entrances to the main lab. They looked in the window in the door- all of the cages were covered and the lights were out. There was nothing moving.

“You sure this is the right lab?” Mickey asked quietly.

“Not 100%, but it's the first place we need to look,” Rose said, reaching for the door handle and opening it silently. Once inside they could hear John speaking quietly, gasping and panting but there was no other sound. Rose and Mickey followed the sound of his voice to one of the cages and whipped the cover off of it to find John Watson curled in a corner, gasping in panic as he whispered into his phone, trying to reach Sherlock who appeared not to be answering.

John startled when the cover was pulled from the cage and he backed away from Rose and Mickey like a panicked animal before his mind caught up with his fear and he sighed in relief.

Rose moved to open the cage and extended a hand to John to help him out of it. Once he was standing- albeit shakily- on his own feet, she reached out and began rubbing her hands from his elbows to his shoulders vigorously- as though he were cold.

“What happened, John?” Mickey asked the older man quietly.

John took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He stepped away from Rose's touch before speaking. “There was a dog- a hound. It was huge and coming for me. Just like Sherlock described, black with red eyes and glowing.”

“Glowing?” Rose asked, having not heard this description before.

“Did you hear the doors open?” Mickey asked.

“No,” John said, growing more frightened by the moment. “I couldn't hear anything but the dog growling and barking.”

“When we came up here,” Rose said, softly, “all the entrances to the lab were closed, so unless someone came in and let the creature out...”

“No!” John shouted. “I saw it again just a few seconds before you came in!”

“John,” Rose tried to keep her voice soothing. “There was nothing in here. Nothing at all near that cage, we checked.”

“It had to be here,” John was growing more panicked by the moment. “I heard it. I saw it.”

Rose stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on John's arm again. “John, it's all right-”

“No, it is _not_ all right!” John roared, tumbling off the narrow precipice of panic on which he had been balanced and tipping right over into hysteria.

The door at the end of the lab burst open and Sherlock strode in. “You have been drugged, John,” he said, dramatically.

Surprise tempered John's panic and anger and he gaped for a moment at Sherlock before stuttering, “d-drugged? How? With what?”

“I don't know that yet. Tell me, what did you see down here?”

“Exactly the same thing you did- a hound with black fur and red eyes, glowing-”

Sherlock cut him off, “exactly, glowing. I planted that idea in your head today. When I saw the dog it wasn't glowing, but when I told you it was, that is how your hallucination manifested. When I saw the creature I saw exactly what I expected: a genetically engineered monstrosity. The power of persuasion and a drug to cause hallucinations.”

“But what drug, Sherlock?”

“I don't know, but I know how to find out,” Sherlock said, and was already leading John out of the laboratory, Rose and Mickey trailing behind.

They returned to the lab where they had met Dr. Stapleton. She was not there- the entire facility had been emptied by that point- so Sherlock settled himself in front of her microscope without preamble.

“So what is this place,” John asked Rose and Mickey, pleadingly, as though desperate for a change of subject.

“Biological research,” Rose responded.

“And that involves glowing rabbits?” John asked.

Mickey smiled and said, “yeah, actually it does. Genetic manipulation is the beginning of a lot of really amazing and brilliant things.”

“And what else?”

“Almost anything you can think of,” Rose said, pondering the experiments that they had been looking into.

“Cloning?”

“Oh yeah,” Mickey said, dismissing it, “cloning's a common one to at least begin with. Remember Dolly the Sheep?”

“S'pose so,” John responded, “but what about human cloning?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Rose said, “why not?”

“Why not, indeed?” John scoffed. “So what about monsters like that dog?”

“Well, that's the weird thing,” Rose said, giving it some thought. “They really don't have the tech to do that. I'm not saying that they wouldn't if they could, but I'm saying that they actually _can't_. They don't know how yet.”

“Sherlock thinks it's drugs,” Mickey said.

“Mind control?” John asked, warily.

“Now that would be very interesting, wouldn't it?” Rose mused, mostly to herself.

“You have a very strange view of what is interesting,” John said, hotly.

“Yeah, I really do,” Rose answered without seeming to take offense or even notice of John's tone. “I don't think a chemical could actually _control_ the mind, just inhibit or enhance certain factors in the mind that would stimulate someone to act or not act in a certain way. Unless it came from much farther afield, but we're pretty sure there's nothing like that going on at Baskerville.”

“Rose,” Mickey said, patiently, “I think he's talking about something like the drug Sherlock is looking for, not actual mind control.”

“Oh, right,” Rose said, coming out of her reverie. “Yeah, they could be doing something like that. If they are though, they're not keeping records of it, so I'd love to know.”

From the other side of the room, Sherlock rose suddenly and threw his glass slide against the wall shouting, “there is nothing, absolutely nothing!”

John, Rose and Mickey had been letting him work without their assistance but now they all looked over to him.

“What, precisely, are you looking for,” Rose asked, gently.

“Drugs, in the sugar. It has to be the sugar. Henry Knight and I both took sugar in our coffee and John did not, otherwise John and I have eaten the same things and been to the same places, but there is _nothing_ ,” Sherlock shouted in frustration.

Sherlock paced for another few moments then whirled on the three people watching him. “Leave, all of you,” he barked, “I need to go to my mind palace.”

“Ah,” John said, leading the way out of the room, “he won't be talking much now, so we may as well go.”

“Mind palace?” Mickey asked, following John.

“Yeah, it's a memory device. Apparently you put everything that you've ever learned or seen in a location that you've created in your mind so that you never forget anything,” John said, softly as they continued into the next room.

“Any location?”

“Yeah, apparently.”

Mickey grinned, “and his is a palace?”  
John returned the smile. “It would be, wouldn't it?”

Mickey shook his head. “Sounds familiar.” He turned to look at Rose, but she had not left the room Sherlock was in. She stood in the doorway, leather-clad arms crossed over her chest, one booted foot crossed over the other, with her shoulder on the door jamb. Her silhouette was a perfect mirror of another taller, broader, and darker silhouette that Mickey remembered, but was long gone.

Rose watched Sherlock access his memories. She had heard of the Method of Loci, the Doctor had mentioned it on several occasions, referring to his own mind's _locus_ as a library. If Sherlock wanted his to be a palace, she could see no reason he should (or could) be dissuaded. When the Doctor had accessed, however, he had talked through it, babbling about random bits and bobs of information that Rose barely understood. Sherlock remained silent, standing in place and moving his hands as though sorting information on a touch-screen computer monitor. She watched, not knowing what he was seeing in his mind. She could see, in the tension of his shoulders and face, how he was getting closer to it. Finally, she saw his shoulders relax, his hands return to his sides, and his soft mouth relax into a real smile. She was struck by how much younger his face looked when he smiled naturally. She knew he must have found what he was looking for in his formidable mental files, and she grinned at him, even as he opened his eyes.

Sherlock was surprised to find her standing there, apparently having watched him sort through his vast mental archives and she was grinning at him- not like she was laughing, but like she was proud of him. He felt a smile want to grace his mouth, but realized that he was already smiling. He schooled his features to smoothness and raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

“You think you're so impressive,” she said. Sherlock's eyes went wide. She was _teasing_ him. She was joking with him and teasing him like he was... _ordinary_.

“Were you impressed?” he barely gasped out.

“Yeah, actually, a bit,” she said, her grin turning wicked.

“Then I must be impressive,” Sherlock said, stepping closer to her. Without his conscious choice his voice dropped in register just slightly as he leaned closer to her. “I don't think it would be simple to impress you, Rose Tyler.”

Sherlock watched, analytically, how the change in his voice and his movement into her space had affected her. He saw her eyes go wide, her pupils dilate. He watched her mouth open and her breath catch as he had said her full name. He felt sure that, if he had held her wrist (as he had done before to another woman) he would have felt her pulse spike. This time, however, she had asked nothing of him. She had been pleased to meet him, had been kind and open with him, had not treated him like a madman, a computer, or a freak. She had, in fact, treated him like a man. He could not, somehow, ascribe The Woman's motivations to this woman, and he could not suppress a slight surge of masculine pride that she desired him as he had suppressed the same in learning the same fact about The Woman.

For Rose's part, she wished that he had never learned both her names. His voice had a quality that was both similar to and completely different from either of her Doctors, but his use of it in saying her first and last name together had an almost identical effect on her heart. She had watched him run cool eyes over her face as he spoke, cataloging her reactions to his words, and knew that he, like the Doctor, could probably read her arousal in her face. 

Rose stepped back from Sherlock and took a deep breath. She avoided smoothing her clothing down- nothing had been done to rumple them, though she felt oddly as though it had. She glanced up at Sherlock's face and saw the slightest twitch about his eyes that indicated smugness. Rose smoothed her face and ignored the smugness as well as her own involuntary reactions. It had been seven years or more since she had last had sex, she was probably due for some involuntary responses to men- she just wished it wasn't _this_ man.

“So,” she began, coolly, “you've fetched what you needed from your mental _locus_ , what do you need to do with it?”

Sherlock looked surprised that she seemed to recognize the mental trick he had just done. He was fairly certain that it was not taught in psychiatry courses in this country's universities. She was right, however, that now that he had retrieved the information, he needed to confirm it. “Computers,” he said, shortly, in answer to her question.

“Major Barrymore's office is what we need then,” she said, briskly. “John, Mickey, we're off, come on,” and she lead the way out of the laboratory and down the hall to the Major's office.

Sherlock pushed past Rose at the door to the office and sat himself in front of the computer before anyone else could. He brought up the login screen as the other three were filing into the room and glared at it for a moment.

“Major Barrymore's password. I'll have to figure it out,” he spat and rose to dash off into the Major's inner office, talking to himself.

Rose sat in front of the computer herself now. “Actually, if they're abiding by all of the regulations for a research facility in the PRGB, I can get us in,” she said, keeping her voice deliberately low so that Sherlock did not overhear. She tapped in the username 'TorchwoodPrimeRT' and password '?9DoctorWho10?' and the whole of Baskerville's computer databanks were open to her.

Rose listened to Sherlock wittering about Winston Churchill in the Major's office. She turned to John and asked, “about how much longer do you think it'll take him in there?”

“I'd say another thirty seconds to a minute,” John responded, softly.

“We can wait that long,” Rose said, leaning back in the desk chair.

Sherlock emerged from the inner office with a look of impossible smugness on his face before looking at the computer screen before Rose, which was open and waiting for him.

“If you ask for help, sometimes people know things that you don't know,” Rose said quietly. The look of dumfounded shock on his face at her hands made her feel much better for the smugness that had been there before. She rose from the chair and, smiling, gestured for Sherlock to sit down. He did so, looking at her speculatively as though trying to determine who she was by looking at her, as he had done before.

Rose kept her face neutral, but had a distinct impression that her eyes were sparkling with laughter. Her eyes had always been her most expressive features. She glanced at both John and Mickey and the three of them burst into laughter. Sherlock's stunned disbelief disappeared and was replaced with irritation.

“Stop it, all of you,” he said, in a haughty voice, but none of them heeded him.

He bowed his head over the computer, determined to ignore them, but they continued to laugh.

Finally, he shouted, “if you can't behave like adults, please leave so that I can get some work done!”

Mickey and John gained control of themselves, and with a final snort, even Rose quieted. She moved behind Sherlock to see what he was looking at. He had pulled up details of a series of behavior modification experiments in the United States (somewhere called Liberty, Indiana) known by the acronym H.O.U.N.D. They had used aerosol drugs that incited fear into the testing subjects to weaponized purpose. The drugs had caused paranoia, delusion, hallucination, frontal lobe damage and, in several cases the testing subjects had committed murders.

“Jesus,” John breathed.

Mickey's jaw clenched tighter and tighter as the young soldier got angrier.

“They were trying to use it as an anti-personnel weapon,” Rose said, quietly. “Disorientate the enemy with fear and stimulus but it made the subjects wildly unstable, uncontrollably aggressive and homicidal.” Her voice was even, but her face grew more disgusted as she continued to read.

“And now, 20 years later, they're continuing it. Refining it, perhaps. But who?” Sherlock turned to Rose. “Do any of those names mean anything to you? You've been looking at personnel records for two days now.”

“You're right, and none of the lead scientists are here.”

Sherlock pulled up a photograph of the entire team, lab techs and graduate students and all and glanced through the faces. “Maybe our friend's somewhere in the back of the picture. Someone who was old enough to be there at the time of the experiments in 1986.” Sherlock suddenly stopped, as though something had occurred to him. He glanced over at John and continued, “maybe someone who says 'cell phone' because of time spent in America, do you remember, John?”

John nodded.

“Gave us his number in case we needed him,” Sherlock said, glancing now at Rose whose eyes shot open.

“Dr. Franklin,” she breathed. “Thank God I didn't waste time trying to like him. But he's a virologist, I've been looking at his experiments, this is chemical warfare. That's a long way to come, even in 20 years.”

“It is where he started though,” Sherlock said with assurance. He looked back at the screen as he said “and he's never lost the certainty, the obsession that that drug really could work. Nice of him to give us his number, let's arrange a little meeting.” Sherlock pulled out his phone to call Dr. Franklin, but John's phone went off at that moment.

John pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. He opened it and said, “Hello? Hello?” He glanced at the others, listening to the voice on the line and said to them, “It's Louise Mortimer, Dr. Mortimer.” Back into the phone he said, “Louise, are you all right? Where are you? Okay, stay there, we'll get someone to you as soon as possible.” 

He rang off then and looked at Sherlock who asked, “Henry?”

John nodded. “He attacked her, he's got a gun.”

“He ran off?”

“Yeah.”

“There's only one place he'll go,” Sherlock raised his phone to his ear. “Lestrade? Get to the hollow, Dewar's Hollow. And bring a gun!”

With that, Rose, Mickey, Sherlock and John made a mad dash for the car.


	11. Denouement

The four bumped over the ground as Rose drove far too quickly. She had taken the Land Rover off-road and onto the moor, but had not let up her speed to compensate for the bad conditions. She gave orders as she drove. “Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes,” stress and fear had her returning to formality in her address of them, “there are pistols under your seat as well as torches. If you aren't now armed, please arm yourselves.”

They arrived on the edge of the hollow, and all piled out from the vehicle. Mickey and John carried torches, Rose went empty-handed, though her pistol was in her holster on the outside of her trousers. Sherlock appeared unarmed, but she was certain that he was not. He also went forward empty-handed.

They descended into the hollow, Rose and Sherlock in the lead with Mickey watching Rose's back and John watching Sherlock's. Rose could hear someone speaking ahead.

“I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry.”

Rose could hear the lead weight of despair in the voice and ran forward ahead of the rest to find him. As she burst into the hollow, she found Henry Knight, kneeling on the ground with the barrel of a pistol in his mouth, obviously about to pull the trigger. “Mr. Knight,” she cried, desperately, “Henry, no!”

Henry looked up and saw her, Sherlock following close on her heels and Mickey and John just after them.

“I know what I am,” Henry said to Rose rather than Sherlock, “I-I-I know what I've done, what I've tried to do.”

“Just put the gun down, please,” Rose pleaded, “please don't do this.”

“No,” Henry was becoming hysterical, now pointing the gun at Rose instead of himself, “I know what I am!”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, in a surprisingly soothing voice, “I'm sure you do. It's all been explained to you, hasn't it? Explained very carefully.”

The gun, which was still pointing at Rose dropped a few centimetres as Henry's attention was focused on Sherlock. “What?” he asked.

“Someone needed to keep you quiet,” Sherlock continued, moving, slowly, in front of Rose, “needed to keep you as a child to reassert the dream that you both clung onto because you,” he was now in front of Rose, protecting her with his own body, “had started to remember. Remember now, remember what happened here when you were a little boy.”

Henry's gun had continued to lower, now pointing closer to Sherlock's knees than his heart. “I thought it had got my dad. The hound, I thought...” Suddenly the gun was up, pointing at Sherlock again as Henry descended again into hysteria. “Oh god! Oh Je- Oh Jesus! I don't- I don't know anymore. I don't!” He moved to put the gun back in his mouth and Rose stepped back out from behind Sherlock.

“No, Henry!” she cried, moving forward again, as though to touch him, but as she came close Henry again removed the gun from his own mouth and pointed it at her heart.

“Henry, remember,” Sherlock ordered, “'Liberty, IN.' Two words. Two words a frightened little boy saw here twenty years ago. You had started to piece things together. Remember what really happened here that night.” Sherlock was moving towards Rose to draw her back to him again, away from Henry's deadly assault. As he drew her away, Sherlock continued to speak to Henry saying, “it wasn't an animal, was it, Henry? Not a monster, a man.”

Henry lowered the gun, his eyes going wide as the memories appeared to flood him.

“You couldn't cope,” Rose said, quietly as she watched him remember, “you were just a child, so you rationalized it into something very different.”

“Then you started to remember,” Sherlock continued, “so you had to be stopped. Driven out of your mind so that no one would believe a word that you said.”

Rose moved forward again to take the gun from Henry's unresisting hand and handed it back to John who had come up behind her. Lestrade called down to Sherlock and Rose from the top of the hollow and made his way down to them.

Henry looked at Sherlock like a lost child. “But we saw it. We saw the hound. Last night. We saw it. We did.”

“There was a dog, Henry, leaving footprints, scaring people, but it was nothing more than an ordinary dog. We both saw it, saw it as our drugged minds wanted us to see it. Fear and stimulus, that's how it works, but there never was any monster.”

Henry looked as though he might cry, and Rose was not certain whether it would be from relief or from despair as his life came crashing down around his ears.

Suddenly there was a howling, growling noise. Everyone in the hollow turned and saw, at the top, a monstrosity with black fur and red eyes.

“Oh no,” Henry cried, again tipping over the edge into panic, “oh no, no, no, no, no.” He was weeping.

“Sherlock,” John said, warily, still looking up at the creature.

“Henry,” Sherlock said, trying to calm the man, but it was not working.

John had his gun out, trained on the dog, and Mickey's had never been put away. The creature descended into the hollow. John turned to Mickey and Lestrade and asked, “are you seeing this?” Both men nodded, and John turned again to Sherlock saying, “they are not drugged, so what is this, Sherlock?”

“All right,” Sherlock shouted, “it is still here, but it is just a dog, Henry. It's nothing more than an ordinary dog.”

The creature continued to descend into the hollow. Mickey and Lestrade kept their weapons trained on it, faces showing looks of disgust. Henry continued to panic.

Rose looked around in panic and saw something approaching. It was short and rounded and, as it stepped into the light she could see that it was a Dalek. “No,” she cried, her voice catching as she backed away from it. “No, that's impossible!” Something clicked in her mind then- it was, actually impossible. Every Dalek in the multiverse was gone- either dismantled atom by atom by the power of the time vortex, or sent into Hell itself by the Doctor's cleverness. There simply could not be a Dalek in this clearing.

Mickey had turned from the monster dog at Rose's cry. There was only one thing that could make his Rose that fearful so when he followed her eyes and saw a Dalek he grabbed her to pull her behind him.

“Mickey, no, whatever you think it is, it's not- not here, not now!”

“Rose it's a Dal-”

“No it isn't Mickey, that's impossible and you know it.” 

Rose forced her mind to work, to try to find some other explanation, despite the approach of her greatest enemy. She wrenched herself from Mickey's grasp and walked toward the Dalek. As she did so, it became far too tall for the creature, and far too slim. No plunger, no vaporizer. Finally, standing before it, she could see that it wasn't a Dalek, but a Cyberman. Her eyes told her that it was her enemy, but her mind told her that it couldn't be. She reached the creature's head and found that it came away when she pulled. She looked at the Cyberman head in her hands and at the creature standing before her- which still had a head. Rose shook her head, trying to clear it. She grabbed the creature by the shoulders and, despite it being taller and heavier than she was, executed a move that the Doctor had taught her from Venusian Akido to trip the creature and bring it to the ground. She rested a foot over the creature's chest and picked up the head she had pulled off of it. She looked at it, tried to clear her mind, and looked again. Not a Cyberman head- a gas mask. A gas mask? Are you my mummy? No, pay attention. A gas mask meant the air was bad. Rose looked around again.

“The fog,” she cried, suddenly. “Sherlock, it's the fog! The drug is in the fog. Aerosol dispersal, like you said.”

The creature she had trapped took advantage of her distraction and pulled her leg out from under her, sending her crashing to the forest floor. It rose to run, only to be caught by Sherlock and DI Lestrade.

“A chemical mine field,” Sherlock said to Dr. Franklin, whose face Rose was occasionally able to make out through the Cyberman features.

The monster dog continued to descend the hollow, and Dr. Franklin begged someone to kill it. Lestrade fired and missed. John fired twice at the creature which reeled back and lay on the ground quiescent now.

Everyone stood perfectly still for a moment, save Rose who was picking herself off the ground. Sherlock sprang into sudden action, grabbing Henry and pulling him forward to look at the creature. Rose moved forward, unimpressed with Sherlock's bedside manner, but she saw how Henry's shoulders relaxed as he looked at the creature that must simply be a dog.

Henry turned to look at Franklin. “You bastard,” he said softly, then shrieked and launched himself at the older man in a frenzy, knocking him to the ground.

Mickey and Lestrade tried to pull Henry off of Franklin, keep the younger man from hurting the scientist.

“Why didn't you just kill me?” Henry shrieked at the older man as Mickey and Lestrade finally managed to pull him away.

“Because dead men get listened to,” Rose said quietly from near where the dog lay.

“He needed to do more than kill you,” Sherlock said quickly. “He had to discredit every word you ever said about your father and he had the means right at his feet. A chemical minefield. Pressure pads in the ground dosing you up every time you came back here.” Sherlock's demeanor changed then, he suddenly seemed giddy. Joyful. “Murder weapon and scene of the crime all at once,” he cried, arms open, looking around. He laughed then. “Oh this case, Henry. Thank you. It's been brilliant.”

“Sherlock,” John said, reprovingly.

“What?” Sherlock asked.

“Timing,” John said, sounding exhausted.

“No good?”

“No, no, it's okay,” Henry interrupted. “It's fine. Because this means... this means that my dad was right.” Henry moved towards Dr. Franklin as he said this. “He found something out, didn't he? And that's why you killed him. Because he was right and he found you right in the middle of an experiment.” Henry was on the edge of tears at this point, and Rose went over and laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned into her, lay his head on her shoulder, and began to weep.

The dog began to stir, growling, and Mickey, without hesitating, shot it. Everyone turned to look at the dog and the shot, and Dr. Franklin took advantage of their inattention to get up and run. Sherlock and Mickey took off after the scientist. John and Lestrade took off after them. Rose would have stayed with Henry Knight, but he seemed to want to follow Franklin as well, so the two of them ran off in pursuit of the other men. Rose was light on her feet, but Henry was obviously not used to that kind of running, so she tended to have to tug him along by his hand.

They followed Dr. Franklin to the edge of the Baskerville facility, which was surrounded by barbed wire. Rose cried, “that's the minefield, stop!” and Sherlock, Lestrade, Mickey and John all stopped.

Franklin continued without heeding her, and she heard when he hit the mine, heard it trigger, and knew that their culprit was a dead man.

“Duck and cover,” she cried now, knowing that it wouldn't be long.

The explosion ripped through them all in a pressure wave before they could take any cover.


	12. Aftermath

John and Mickey ate breakfast the following morning outside under the pearly grey sky. Rose could not stomach the thought and nursed a cup of tea.

Sherlock joined them, carrying two cups of coffee. He set one in front of John and kept the other for himself.

“I suppose they didn't actually kill the dog,” Sherlock said, taking a sip from his cup.

“So it would seem,” John said.

“Couldn't bring themselves to do it,” Rose commented.

“I see,” Sherlock said.

“No you don't,” Rose and John said together, and looked at each other surprised.

Sherlock nodded, however, and said, “no, I don't.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Sentiment?” he hypothesized.

“Sentiment,” John confirmed.

Rose started to giggle, but stopped quickly, sighing heavily and resting her head on her arms on the table. She could never quite make it out of a mission where someone died- even someone who was on the wrong side- without second-guessing the entire event and wondering what she could have done to get everyone out alive.

Mickey reached over and rubbed her back. She turned her head on her arms to look at him and smile wanly.

“You all right?” he asked.

“I'm always all right,” she responded. Time Lord code for 'really not all right at all,' and they both knew it.

Rose sat up with a sigh, and met John's worried eyes and Sherlock's speculative ones. She did not wish to discuss it, so she changed the subject adeptly. Turning to Sherlock she asked, “here's what I don't understand, what happened to John in the lab? Because you said he'd never been down to the hollow at that point.”

“He must have been dosed with it elsewhere. Somewhere in the lab, probably, a leaky pipe or something,” Sherlock said, “do you want some sauce with that?” He rose as though to go get something from the kitchen.

“But you were certain it was in the sugar,” John said, starting to understand. “You were completely sure it was Henry Knight's sugar so... Oh god, the coffee,” John sighed.

“Coffee, what coffee?” Rose asked.

“Yesterday, when Greg was going through the books with the innkeepers, Sherlock brought me a cup of coffee as an apology. It was sweetened, and I don't usually take it sweet.”

Rose seemed to realize something then, and turned an angry glare at Sherlock saying, “that's why you took me to Henry Knight's house, isn't it? To get some of his sugar to dose John with?”

“And then what?” John asked, getting angry. “You left me alone in the laboratory to scare me? Played dog noises over the PA?”

“It was perfectly safe!” Sherlock cried, looking discomfited at the angry glares of both John and Rose. “Laboratory conditions, quite literally.”

“Sherlock, I was terrified,” John said heatedly.

“I knew what effect it had on a superior mind, I had to try it on an average one.”

Rose said nothing, just leaned forward and slapped Sherlock smartly across the face. “You do not use your friends as laboratory rats without their consent, you stupid arsehole,” she said in a deadly whisper.

Sherlock raised his hand to his cheek and worked his jaw as though afraid it had been broken.

“I don't care how brilliant you think you are, Sherlock Holmes,” Rose continued, ignoring his indignant look, “John is your friend, and if you want him to help you, you will treat him like a human being, not like one of those monkeys in cages!” Her eyes were jewel-bright and her cheeks were brilliantly pink. She was completely beautiful in her anger, and completely terrifying.

Mickey lay a hand on Rose's arm and she looked at him. He could see the shine of tears that were being ruthlessly held back. He could see that her anger wasn't with Sherlock- not entirely- but with a man who would make a decision for another person that could hurt or even destroy them without their consent. A man who would send someone to another universe for their own good. Rose wasn't shouting at Sherlock- not entirely.

Rose saw what Mickey must be seeing and closed her mouth. She looked at Sherlock and John, looking so bewildered, and felt ashamed. She ran into the inn without another word.

Sherlock frowned after her for a moment, then rose.

“Where are you going,” Mickey asked, slightly defensively.

“I've got to see a man about a dog,” Sherlock said dismissively, not looking at the other man as he followed Rose Tyler into the inn.

She was not in the lounge, though Sherlock had expected her to go to the privacy of her room as he suspected that she was near tears. Sherlock ascended the stairs slowly, thinking his way through what he would say to Rose. How he would apologize. He was sure that he needed to this time, but, except for locking John in that lab, he wasn't sure what else to apologize for.

He arrived at her door and knocked softly. “Ms. Tyler,” he called through the door. “Rose? I'd like to apologize.”

The door opened and she stood before him. She had shed no tears, but her face looked pale under the flush that had been there before. “No,” she said, quietly, “it seems that I should be apologizing to you, actually. I looked at you and saw someone else, and that isn't fair at all. What you did to John was wrong, but I was not really angry with you, I was angry with,” she touched the pendant that hung between her breasts- this was the first time that Sherlock had ever seen her do something so obvious to reference the chain and it seemed unconscious- “someone else.”

“You were right, though,” Sherlock said quietly, “I shouldn't have treated John like a lab rat and taken away his choice.”

Rose smiled wanly, “thank you for saying that, Sherlock.”

Sherlock felt a slight shiver as she used his first name. He liked the way it sat upon her tongue and how it sounded in her accent.

“You thought the drug was in the sugar though, and it wasn't,” she said, slyly then.

“Beg pardon?” he asked, he had stopped thinking about the case for a moment.

“You got it wrong- you thought the drug was in the sugar, but it wasn't, was it?”

“I- no.”

“Yes. You got it wrong,” she sing-songed the last bit and gave him a huge smile which had her tongue tucked between her teeth.

Sherlock found the sight of her pink tongue peculiarly distracting. He was more focused on that than what he said next which was why he admitted more than he should have. “Yes, I suppose. A bit.” When her grin widened, he realized what he had said. “Won't happen again,” he added quickly.

Rose laughed. “Thank you for apologizing, Mr. Holmes. Now you should go finish your coffee. Mickey and I will be leaving soon, so I suppose I'll see you around.”

Sherlock nodded and said, “I think that you will, Rose Tyler.” He smiled slightly when her eyes widened as they always seemed to when he used her full name. He walked away, and heard her shutting the door. Just before she managed it, he turned, suddenly and said, “Rose? Please call me Sherlock.”


End file.
